House Democrats criticize AT&T’s exclusive Apple iPhone deal

324 Comments

324 Comments

  9. While Steve is brilliant, I’ve overlooked his democratic (political) obsession, which is fine, I like to question authority. The republicans give us plenty to complain about, but the economic progress they’ve made, whether on purpose or accident, is undeniable. But it is funny how the democrats will turn on their own at any opportunity, even during a meeting not pertaining to this topic.

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  15. When you pay full retail price for the phone obviously you should be able to pick your own carrier. Naturally we all made the decision to buy the iPhone and go with AT&T but if the phone is unlocked before my 30 day trial is up I will dump at&t like a hot potato! This bodes well for unlocking the phone, as is perfectly legal in the U.S, as congress may get onto Apple if they re-lock it, or even attempt to for that matter. Strange how Apple’s party of choice may be the ones to bite it in the ass! haha…

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  19. This is total BS. Was the RAZR not sold through an exclusive
    agreement with one provider when it was released? Someone in the phone industry has friends in high places. Crying Democrat bitches! Jealous of Apples success no doubt.

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  22. Because they have apparently solved all other problems.

    While they are at it why don’t they start scrutinizing other exclusive deals, like NFL has with DirecTV regarding Sunday Ticket exclusivity.

    What probably happened is some Dem’s whiny ass kid couldnt get out of his or her contract to buy an iPhone and daddy had to run to the floor of Congress and demand an investigation.

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  25. <<Comment from: schmluss
    Does it really matter that MDN quoted Ronald Reagan? The quote is true no matter who said it.>>

    Well yes it does, if those quoted do not practice what they preach makes the words kind of empty and truth-less, no?

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  28. Hell Yeah! Those American Commies!
    Who was that actor again?

    Free education to everybody!
    Free medical care to everybody!
    Free dental care to everybody!
    Money to the poor people!
    Free school meals to the kids!
    Save the nature!
    State payed pension to everybody!
    Holidays payed by the employer!

    Oh… That is what we do in the Europe. Damn! We should have more corporations&suckers; to suck the money out of us. Oh… Damn we do have those.. Danone&Nestle;&RoyalPeople;&Poland;
    Those poor American dummies dont have that amount of money to do that. Maybe it is because of that war that has costed thousands and thousands of lives and over 1000 Billion dollars? + creating millions of ultrafanatic people.

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  40. Noooooo not RR!
    <<Comment from: schmluss
    Does it really matter that MDN quoted Ronald Reagan? The quote is true no matter who said it.>>

    Well yes it does, if those quoted do not practice what they preach makes the words kind of empty and truth-less, no?

    If the statement is true. It does NOT matter who said it. Nor does it matter if you think that they did not follow it. It is still a true statement.

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  42. Come on now, people. We should know by now that BOTH parties have had their share of scandal and corruption in the last 2 administrations. And we should all have learned one thing:

    No one.. wants to give George W. Bush a blow job.

    Go Bill!!!

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  54. The basic Republican – or free market approach – is to let the market decide how it will work, and competition in its forms will ferrit itself out.

    Some, not all, but some, more liberal Democrats, look at opportunities to impose more central government control – and what better area than over the ways we communicate.

    Lastly, it is those who aspire more control over the populous and imposing goverment rule and law into markets, it is those that are likely candidates to get the ear of other carriers and see financial backing coming their way.

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  57. Didn’t Reagan negotiate with Terrorists to get the hostages free on his first day in office?

    Republicans do not really believe in the “free markets,” they just believe in helping their fat cat friends increase their wealth at the expense of the working class, who get stuck paying all of the taxes.

    During Reagan and both Bushes, the income gap between the wealthy and the poor increased.

    But, hey it’s the free market, so it’s fair.

    MDN word: types

    The free market only works for certain “types” of people and 99% of us are not them.

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  58. Let’s all post our favorite quotes. Here’s one of mine, which perfectly describes Microsoft’s idea of liberty.

    “…liberty, in the slogans of the strong, means freedom from restraint in the exploitation of the weak.” – Will Durant, Caesar and Christ, volume three in The Story of Civilization

    MW: power, as in “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”.

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  59. The poor in this country have it far better than the poor anywhere and any time in the history of the world. It will keep getting better. People who work hard and stay out of trouble should be rewarded handsomly. You are a commie lefty. Straight out commie.

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  60. Reagan was right on target!! AS USUAL!!

    1) Selling arms to Iraq, including helicopters that were used to attack the Kurds who were murdered by the thousands.
    2) Providing training and funding to the Mujahaddin, which metastasised into Al Quaeda – need I say anymore.
    3) Selling arms to Iran, and using the funds to break the law.

    And before you say he didn’t know about those things and wasn’t guilty of anything, a truly great president would be both in power and in control.

    Either he was unaware and it was a symptom of his “hands-off” style of management which is kind of reminiscent of another Chief Executive who likes to be in bed by 9pm.

    And if he was aware, then he was a crook.

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  63. @Mr. Reeee

    Reagan: The SECOND most embarrassing president in recent history.

    Who’s in FIRST? Gee… tough one there.

    The first was Bill Clinton. The seconds most embarrassing was Jimmy Carter…

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  65. I love this…

    Both Al Gore and Steve Jobs (and most of the board of directors) are flaming liberals. The people wanting to under mind Apple direction are flaming liberals!

    The next election we should be seeing Steve and Al on the conservative campaign trail.

    wmd

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  72. Liberals do not care about poor people. It’s all about power for them. They want to take away as many rights and decisions as possible and tax as much as possible. Very bad people. Don’t let them fool you.

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  73. The poor in this country have it far better than the poor anywhere and any time in the history of the world

    Yeah, with their universal high-quality healthcare that they don’t need to pay for (?) and the excellently funded public school system where all the buildings have floors encrusted with diamonds.

    Go and do some basic research on poverty and homelessness before you post that kind of crap. If you’re poor and you have a serious medical condition, you’re going to die as you’re a second-class citizen; in France, Germany or Sweden, you’ll still get treated like a human being who matters.

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  74. Once upon a time Ma Bell owned the telephone in your home. There was little innovation for years. Now you own your phone independent of your land line carrier. Things are better this way I would venture. Why this has not been applied to the mobile phone business is a mystery.

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  78. Who is dumb enough to criticize AT&T’s $175 early termination fee as though every other cell provider hasn’t been doing the same thing since the dawn of the cell phone industry?

    I know! Our elected representatives are that dumb! In fact, they’re the sorriest bunch of losers ever seen together in the same place at the same time.

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  79. I have never been more embarrased to be an American. The greed showing amongst people claiming to be Christian is amazing.

    I don’t know about the rest of you, but some I believe that government restraints on businesses need to take place. People working for minimum wage jobs cannot afford to put gas in their cars to go to work while gas companys are making record profits. These same minimum wage workers cannot afford to pay the tolls on the increased number of toll roads that are going up because greedy Americans don’t want the government to build the roads. My insurance gets more expensive every passing year while my benefits go down. I could go on and on.

    What is your answer to the question “Are you better off today than you were eight years ago?” My answer is that I am worse off today than I was eight years ago even though I have received two graduate degrees in that time. I don’t care that Clinton was with more people than his wife. He didn’t sale weapons to terrorists, he wasn’t in bed with the oil companies, and I was better off back then. The fact that Clinton knew how to actually LEAD instead of following Fundamentalist Christians (who are every bit as dangerous as Fundamentalist Muslims) makes him a far superior President to any recent Republican.

    As far a s Carter goes, he puts his money where his mouth is. He has spent his time since his presidency making this world a truly better place. Most of you are probably spending too much time listening to Fox News to actually research for yourselves.

    I feel sorry for all those Americans who cannot think for themselves.

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  80. @Kit-N
    It’s great when Dems start fighting Dems. Kinda like Al Qaida fighting Iran. (One of their strongest supporters!)

    Maybe SJ will change affiliations now.

    No, SJ doesn’t need to change anything. You do, meaning you need to do some research before posting a bad analogy.
    Al Qaida and Iran are run by rival Islamic religious sects who appear to hate each another. You know, the Sunni and Shiite factions and militias who are busy killing each other in Iraq.

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  81. Ted…

    Bite me!

    And your argument is specious and self-serving and is equivalent to a child saying “How was I to know that juggling the knives would result in me stabbing myself in the foot?”.

    What did illegally funding the Contras – who used to like skinning their opponents and leaving the corpses hanging (little charmers) – have to do with the Middle East? I know that some of you right-wingnuts have issues locating countries on a map, but Nicaragua is a long way from West Asia.

    Oh, and bite me.

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  84. What? Didn’t this guy read the fine print on his previous cell contracts or is the iPhone his first cell phone?

    To read this guy, you’d think exclusivity and early termination fees were new with the iPhone. This just sounds like politicians wanting attention. What a waste.

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  86. I like the quote, MDN. I like the fact that information control can be objective and portray both sides of an issue, as long as they are positive on Apple, of course.

    Time for those politicians to demand more Apple in the government workplace.

    MDN MW = “union”

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  96. it’s amazing greedy people are.

    it’s also amazing to see that many people think that having the government pay for things like, i don’t know, healthcare and such believe it’s wrong. europe is a socialist hell? do you realize we’re 37th in the WORLD in healthcare? 37? that’s pretty bad for the “greatest country in the world.” any thoughts here? any way to dispute that? nope. it’s a fact. we’re not always right and we’ve rarely been anything but wrong the last few years since 2000.

    it’s sad. but, you’re so determined to keep your stupid party lines and make sure that there is still some form of discrimination or segregation in the country that none of it matters. democrats are always pussies! republicans are always greedy old white men! i tend to believe the republican statement more than the other, but i am grown up and educated enough to know when either side is lying.

    gw bush will go down in history as our worst president. make no mistake about it. he has no belief in actual democracy as proven by his actions, ignorance of civil liberties, disregard of the other branches of government, and all his wannabe cowboys and indians games he’s playing. we’re living through hell people. nothing is getting better in this company unless you run a large oil company or make well over a few hundred grand per yer. otherwise, your life is difficult and it isn’t getting easier. under clinton there was a budget surplus! there were jobs! life was moving and progressing. he reversed 12 years of gop fuck ups and wastes of money. now, we’re in the LARGEST deficit ever and in a “war” which has accomplished nothing in an area we should not even be in. and if you’re stupid enough to actually believe that al queda had anything to do with saddam hussein, you just need to crawl in a hole and stop breathing. everyone that presented that evidence has gone back and stated that it was inflated and they basically lied. hmm…you still trust cowboy george?

    wake up, everyone! regardless of which side you may lie, there are problems and no one in the government is really going to fix it yet. it’s a pain in the ass.

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  97. The exclusive right only last for five years. Apple can change which carrier to work with once it is expires. If congress want to take away five years exclusive rights, take away 18 years for patents from pharmaceutical companies and life + 100 years for copyright from movie and music industries.

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  99. It’s posts like these that keep me from taking this site seriously.

    Dear reader: It shouldn’t matter to you what you affiliation is…you all should be pissed that you’re being played a tool by this site into commenting on mindless troll bait.

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  102. This all has to be Bush’s fault somehow.

    As for Reagan, doesn’t any here who was alive in that era remember how HATED he was in office? Has everyone forgotten the Ronald the Clown jokes, the actor-as-president aghast, “Star Wars” SDI, Iran-Contra, and the movement to impeach him?

    Reagan was held to a level of contempt on par with Bush today. Seeing people wax about Reagan’s greatness so many years after the fact makes me wanna puke.

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  104. You can wait for years in Europe to get a completely incompetent doctor. That system sucks. The US is not communist and we won’t let you fscking libs ruin this great country. Libs are so incredibly clueless.

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  105. Ok! To all you freaking maggots who believe Apple should unlock the iPhone, get a life! Companies are entities and have every right to make exclusive deals. We, on the other hand, have choices! We can either choose to pay $600 or not pay the $600. You bitches are beginning to sound like this is a freaking entitlement. Remember, you don’t have to buy the damn thing. No one is forcing you to.

    On a side note, the bar has been raised. The iPhone will force companies to innovate; so we hope. Competition is good! And if the Democrats decide to intervene simply because of some whinny bitch company who testified before Congress today, they’ve lost a party member. What they’ll be getting in ’08 will be a congressional chamber full of independents.

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  106. I’d vote for reagan if he was alive and healthy, I’d vote for clinton regardless there was a sex machine under his desk, but yet too I would vote for Gore in a blink of an eye!. 😀 Hes a board member of Apple!

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  111. What is with this Reagan fixation? He has almost become the Republicans’ Jesus. Any day now we will hear stories of the Second Coming of Reagan, and we’ll start decorating eggs and trees in his name.

    Personally, I think he had some great ideas, and I think he has some very bad ideas– worst of all, turning the Republican Party into the borrow-and-spend machine that it is. I still laugh when I hear someone complain about how Democrats spend money foolishly. Um…. yyyyeah. Kettle, black– yadda yadda.

    Anyway, Reagan was an average president. Pubs are truly hurting for a leader to worship, since the monkey in office sure ain’t cuting it.

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  115. “George Bush will go down as the greatest president in history. You imbecils just don’t understand the threat around us. “

    Funny, it was his failure to understand the threat in the first place that got us into this mess. And why will he go down as the greatest president? He has accomplished NOTHING other than being the guy that just happened to inhabit the White House when those ‘tards got a lucky below the belt punch against us. How does that make him great?

    Turn off the rightwingnut talking heads and start thinking for yourself.. a little. Please.

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  117. I want to take this opportunity to give President Bush some credit. He’s way better than Reagan, who “cut and run” from Lebanon, after 241 American Marines were killed by the Hezbollah bomb. Bush would have stayed the course.

    Unlike Reagan, who in a 1985 effort to free a few American hostages being held in Lebanon, authorized the sale of 107 tons of anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles to Iran – President Bush stands up to the Iranians, and would never consider appeasement or negotiations, let alone selling them weapons!

    President Bush is a true American hero, not Ronald Reagan who was a coward and Muslim bootlicker.

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  120. True American…

    According to someone called Ted (who appears to be some sort of Limbaugh-lover), when Reagan sold weapons to the Iranians it was a different time in the Middle East (like that’s a justification). So it wasn’t appeasement and how dare you say so.

    But as for Bush being an American hero; please don’t make me laugh – the man can’t even face a hostile press room or the bereaved parents and families of service personnel lost in action.

    The day he agrees to meet Cindy Sheehan, he’ll be about half as courageous as he expects those who effectively serve under his command. Until then, he’s just a lightweight.

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  122. Setting aside President Bush’s heroic qualifications, which I believe he deserves, as a true American and conservative, I believe that Ronald Reagan’s relationship with Iran which involved selling them weapons, makes him not just a coward and a Muslim bootlicker, but the worst kind of traitor.

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  123. @not fooled:

    And your little diatribe makes ME want to puke.

    For God’s sake, can’t we keep the fricking politics OFF this board? What the hell does it have to do with Apple anyway?

    Oh, wait, the idiotic representatives of BOTH parties brought it up. For the typical idiotic posturing, trying to capatalize on a news story that has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH THEM.

    Maybe we can be just a little bit more reasonable here than the furkin’ idiots inside the beltway. Is that too much to ask?

    After looking over the three pages of pointless political drivel here, though, apparently we can’t.

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  125. funny how Raygun said “”We who live in free market societies believe that growth, prosperity and ultimately human fulfillment, are created from the bottom up…”

    And yet all of the repub tax breaks are always for the top…

    Ya want political tripe on mdn to fatten your web hits.. well here ya go.

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  126. The thing I don’t get is, let’s say you open the iPhone up to work on other service providers… all of it’s functions won’t work right because AT & T had to do an overhaul on their system to get it to support visual voicemail, among other things. In order for Apple to make sure everyone was going to get the same experience, they had to lock into one carrier!

    Not every carrier is going to make those kind of changes to their system for every new phone that comes out. In this case, it would seem, that an exclusive contract was necessary.

    So stop with the whining!

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  128. MDN get your head out of your ass for 10 nanoseconds. AT&T charging $175 if I want to quit their service when they do not subsidize the iPhone is pure “screw the customer if I can get away with it” and greed.

    I’m not a Democrat, I own lots of AAPL, I have phones on both Verizon and AT&T, so don’t read anything into this comment other than what I said.

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  129. Wow! I send a little note to MDN about Congress talking about the iPhone, go to the dentist, come back, and look what happened. My teeth are so much whiter!

    Doesn’t matter what they said. Doesn’t matter which side said it. THEY WERE TALKING ABOUT IPHONE!!! That’s impressive.

    What this has to do with health care, I have no idea, but I would like to take the opportunity to tell One Fin in Manland that there is NO such thing as free anything. Europe is a different society than America. Take it or leave it. Bitch to Africa to shape up, not us.

    As for The Gipper’s quote, can any disagree? Or just diss? Maybe the point would have been better understood had the name been omitted. What, it was wrong because HE said it?

    And C1, that sure didn’t seem like you. Glad to hear it wasn’t.

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  130. The DEMs are now trying to force Apple to use other carriers.
    I dont see them bitchin’ about other cell companies exclusive phone deals.
    They also want to squash free speach and debate on talk radio by FORCING radio stations to carry blithering Libs low rated shows. Air America was a dismal failure. The Lib clowns have CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN. They also have PBS and NPR, countless hours of EXTREME, pointless socialist dribble programing that WE pay for with our tax money.
    Their 100 days…… crickets here….. NOTHING. As long as the dems keep voting for people like drunken fool Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi (who still wants a 757 at her personal disposal) and the rest of the F-tards that are the dems. As long as they align with the Michael Moore types they will continue to lose elections.
    As long as the bloated, moronic Al Gore continues to be the biggest example of hypocrisy on the planet. Gees dont even debate global warming, even Al Gore himself in 97 said NO to the Kyoto treaty. Spent a lot of time in Europe…… SOCIALISM SUCKS. The dems are completely against free speech unless they approve it and they jump on the latest trend. The GOP is certainly messed up but the dems are just fubar.

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  133. Sounds like Motorola, Nokia, Microsoft, Verizon, Blackberry… are scared and have their lobbyists out in force, trying to beat Apple via congress because they can’t do so in the marketplace. What seems intuitive to Apple, and so difficult for all its competitors to understand, is that if you make great products–products that are powerful, intuitive, and fun to use–the public will buy them. Rather than spend their money on lobbyists, perhaps they should put it into R&D!

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  134. I love nothing more than pissing off House Democrats but you guys are priceless – your partisan observations are just so inept that I couldn’t stop reading. Keep up the stupid articles and we will have an endless source of liberal-oriented entertainment.

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  135. Ronnie’s one of the best. Great quote, and holds much truth.

    Things may open up in the future for all we know, this is the first edition of the iPhone. Think of how many companies were on board providing the first iPod music or movies? And how many now? The iPhone is in it’s infancy folks. So chill out.

    Why doesn’t Apple board member Algore call off his dogs?

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  137. Well, At@t’s network is very slow. It’s not a good network. That is why I have chosen to not buy this wonderful phone for the moment.

    I really don’t care either for democrats or republicans, they are all pro big business shit on the little guy anyways. I should know, i run a small business myself.

    What we don’t pay in taxes we pay through the nose on goods and services. We get reamed either way you look at it.

    The Iphone is only as good as the network it is on. It would be nicer to have different networks in competition with each other then not don’t you think?

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  138. @TooFUNNY
    Good Ted Kennedy remark. I’m old enough to remember Teddy driving drunk as a skunk off that Chappaquiddic Bridge and killing Mary Jo Kopechne in the accident. Where were “Mothers Against Drunk Driving” back then?

    How come it never gets brought up when they’re dragging out dirt on everyone else? (Democrat & Republican)

    Teddy got elected on the coat tails of his brother’s memory. And he ain’t no John OR Bobby. Just a blowhard old drunk.

    Ha, MDN Magic Word: “using” soooo friggin’ perfect it is.

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  139. Of course the Republicans are defending Apple and AT&T, Republicans hate choice. It’s not democratic. Of course the Democrats are just time wasting gasbags. Who cares that the President is in violation of the constitution? THE IPHONE. OMG it’s only on AT&T.

    Vote green or die you Democrat/Republican fools.

    You sound just like the fat politicians. Arguing over NOTHING important. Just stupid iPhone stuff. Isn’t it strange how 90% here agree on Apple but only 50% agree on politics? It’s designed that way people. While we argue over things that if phrased different ways 90% of us would agree on, corporations and their paid politicians are stealing your money and your future. But do you care? No. It’s easier just to receive your opinions from the TV/radio/newspapers/magazines and pass it off as something you’ve actually thought about.

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  143. If Apple and AT & T want to make something exclusive to them why can’t they?????? You as the consumer don’t have to buy it. There are plenty of other phones out there. Not as nice but Apple/AT&T deserve to make some money on their hard, pioneering work. So shut the F up you whining, commie, cry babies!!!!! You people are sick.

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  145. Calling names, and reciting talk radio “facts” isn’t the same as political thought.

    Try again…

    If that is the extent of you political wisdom, maybe you should go set in the corner for a while. If you have to make stuff up (strawman) to have an enemy, you have already lost.

    MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

    MDN word… “Simple”… really, it fits!

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  147. I actually watched the hearing. The whole thing. I am a libertarian, but the democrats are right on this issue. Here’s why: The carriers owe their success in preventing competition to the fact that they have government-granted spectrum monopolies. This by itself justifies regulation, just as public utilities, also protected by law against competition, are regulated.

    Also: the fact that the carriers get everyone to sign adhesion contracts containing early termination fee clauses does not mean that the government should enforce those countries in courts of law. Maybe they should be allowed to recover the cost of the phones which they have allegedly subsidizes. But guess what: the iPhone isn’t subsidized. There is basically no justification for early termination fees with the iPhone other than the fact that AT&T can get away with it.

    The wireless market in the US is messed out, and totally distorted by government involvement to begin with. The carriers engage in collusive and uncompetitive behavior.

    CDMA carriers won’t even activate unlocked phones for you, and GSM carriers won’t sell naked SIM cards. Yet they claim that the lock-in is all about recovering costs. What costs, if the customer provides the equipment?

    Hell, today at the hearing, the Verizon guy even trotted out the old claim that they won’t allow WiFi on most phones because of “battery life concerns.”

    Seeking to shape the regulatory environment such that your business model gets legal protection isn’t “competition,” it’s rent-seeking. Being pro-incumbent isn’t being pro-business or pro-capitalism, it’s being pro-campaign contributions.

    Every single entrepreneur I’ve met hates the wireless companies with a passion. There’s a reason for this.

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  149. Hmmm
    <rant> Weighing in on the lives it costs fro freedom debate – debacle. (For the record I am a two time Vet of the Viet nam war – another war that made America safe for Haliburton ah ah … capitalisim, er… democracy… Yep that’s right…

    How many American lives have been saved by the almost million dead civilains in Iraq and over 3000 US soldiers (not counting all of the Iraqui soldiers – who don’t seem to count in the counting)? NONE!

    Before you castigate me – look into who has profited from all of these live weapons and battle-grade equipment tests. Sure as hell isn’t the every day American! Is it? Ask any parent who has a child who either died or was injured in the killing fields of Iraq. (Injury count is approx. 105,000) http://icasualties.org/oif/

    Instead of beotching about the iPhone why in the hell are they (the Democratic ‘leaders” – as in sheep – not doing what they were elected to do? What we do know is that Nancy Pelosi has proven just because you are at the head of the class (with no class) doesn’t mean you have the balls to do what your constituents wanted you to do.

    OOOOOhhhhhh am I in a bad mood or what!
    I am just tired of good men and women dying to pad the coffers of the warmongers. The only terrorist threat to America sit in the White House. Get informed and then get Mad and then do something!

    Phuque folks – you are being sold out while you beotch and complain about what features/non-features the most amazing little electronic device in the history of mankind has or doesn’t have when your liberties are being stolen from you by an administration that was not elected into office.

    Phuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuque!!!!!
    </rant>

    all the above is expressed with the deepest of feeling and compassion!

    feeling = MDN

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  151. “MacDailyNews Take: “We who live in free market societies believe that growth, prosperity and ultimately human fulfillment, are created from the bottom up, not the government down. Only when the human spirit is allowed to invent and create, only when individuals are given a personal stake in deciding economic policies and benefitting from their success — only then can societies remain economically alive, dynamic, progressive, and free… Everyday life confirms the fundamentally human and democratic ideal that individual effort deserves economic reward.” – Ronald Reagan, September 29, 1981″

    I couldn’t have said it any better or clearer.

    Imagine the clusterphuck if the healthcare industry gets taken over by the government. What will they take over next? The auto industry? The electronics industry? The hotel industry?

    People who think government can do things better are simple idiots who use feelings and emotions instead of reason and logic when thinking.

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  155. “We who live in free market societies believe that growth, prosperity and ultimately human fulfillment, are created from the bottom up…”

    Sure Ronnie, in your dreams. And thanks again for the failed “trickle-down” economic policy we had to endure.

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  158. Come’on people, we can do better then a mere 4 pages of remarks! Let’s get off track a bit more and throw slavery into the mix, If slavery were still with us today in the U.S., which political party leaders would own the greatest number?

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  160. “Face it … the required agreement isn’t what everyone might want. I’m surprised, though, that the Democrats have the complaints and the Republicans the praise – isn’t Jobs a card-carrying Democrat?”

    What we forget is that there is a HUGE difference between a card carrying Democrat (or Republican) and a national-level politician.

    To big-party politicians, their beliefs are like a religious cult and they will eat their own children to further that cult and remain in power.

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  163. I recall Regan saying something about both deficits and walls between states.
    Any of you Bush boosters have the cojones to trot out those quotes?

    No? Small surprise.

    btw… I also call bs on this: “BOTH parties have had their share of scandal”. The present administration makes Tammany Hall look like St. Peter’s Choir. Which, (Holy fzack!) puts me left of c1.

    mw: reason

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  164. Chrissy – scary – that’ll scare all those darn insurgents away.

    FWIW – Whilst most of the US viewed Reagan as a superhero, Europeans considered him a complete idiot during his tenure.

    Back on topic – I would prefer the House investigate why the US mobile networks are so behind Europe and Asia technically and the cost and restrictions of the services.

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  167. “‘m old enough to remember Teddy driving drunk as a skunk off that Chappaquiddic Bridge and killing Mary Jo Kopechne in the accident. Where were “Mothers Against Drunk Driving” back then?

    How come it never gets brought up when they’re dragging out dirt on everyone else? (Democrat & Republican)”
    …

    Seems like some retarrd is bringing it up now.

    Reply

  171. Listen I don’t agree with the comment on the iPhone I’m sure other cell companies had financed their campaign or they have invested stock…. but both party look out for their campaign financiers … look at the XM – Sirius merger the FCC is ran by members of the Bush administration and they are fighting that merger.INstead of fixing healthcare war in Iraq or not forcing elderly people into selling their homes and loose life savings because they are forced into a Nursing Home.

    ALL OF POLITICS IS BULLSHIT!! WASHINGTON IS FOR SELL ALWAYS HAD ALWAYS WILL!
    RISE UP PEOPLE AND FIGHT !!!!

    No matter D or R if they are fucking up remove them next election!

    Reply

  172. Actually, I have another 35 years before I am an octogenarian. But now that you have used the elderly and rural people as an insult, have stated your belief and dared any to discuss it, I thought you might want to prove how intelligent you are and how correct the left is (when they aren’t insulting people for asking questions) by actually educating us. Have I confused you more?

    Reply

  173. MDN quoting Reagan.

    That explains why the MDN editorial staff are so fscking stupid. If you were to add up the IQs of every person who voted for Reagan and the two Bushes, multiply the sum by 1000, the resulting IQ would still fall short of the bacteria living in my cat’s shitbox.

    As long as there are Repugs, America will remain a shining example of pig-ignorance and dangerous delusion to the world.

    Thanks MDN, for demonstrating why America is so far behind the rest of the industrialized world in every important cultural metric.

    Reply

  175. rlhamon
    since when does the FCC have anything to do with healthcare? And is the merger good or bad? If they merge, where is the competition? Well, it is with terrestrial in my opinion. And if they don’t merge, then I won’t get the extra channels on my Sirius radio.

    Reply

  177. I’m not insulting rural old people, just you f’wit.
    btw how can you be so dumb/lazy for a 55 year old?

    1: Reagan: “Mr. Gorbachev, Tear down this wall”
    2: Reagan (state o’ the union address): “I received a report this morning, and I’m not happy with it. When you hear what it says, you won’t be happy either. The national debt has risen to all-time highs…”

    Thar you go, you jesusland, shite for brains, sheep shanker.
    Ask me if I’d like to insult you more.

    mw: want

    Reply

  180. OK, good math there, Einstein. I am 45.
    so that wall was between nations, not states, right?
    And he was confronting a deficit, yes?
    Now, are we supposed to be impressed that this is what you were talking about? Is this something bad he did? Or do you just have a few snippets here and there of stuff you’ve heard, but never bothered to understand? Please blather on.

    Please, us old stupid redneck grandpas ain’t got a chance in Hades les’n you come out ‘n s’plain it to us!

    Reply

  183. Ok, I see, so you being 15 will make you how dumb and lazy? How about too scared and tired to explain exactly WTF your point was at 12:07? Seriously, just give even the libs here a clue.

    Not trying to embarrass you, just giving you a fair chance to embarrass yourself.

    Maybe you should pay attention to what Always said.

    Reply

  184. Oh, look at the clock…time for my Geritol enima. I guess if I didn’t have to work tomorrow, I could stay up all night in my mom’s basement playing Dragon Dongs 4 and looking stupid on the internet.

    Good luck with that Wii stick. Closes you’ll get to a lover, child.

    Reply

  185. Once again, many of the folks at MDN and MDN (in their fudging of the issue) itself proves that they only half understand the criticism that has been leveled. I read this same article on another Mac centric website and how THEY reported the issue made it clear that what the good senator from MA was miffed about was the fact that you purchase a phone that is not subsidized then you cancel the contract with AT&T and then you are (from what they said) left with a brick that not only can’t make a call (which is to be expected) but also cant’ function as a music player or anything else for that matter. As I don’t have an iPhone I can’t say for certain this is true (but since I have seen this reported elsewhere I will go with that as a fact for now) but this begs the question: why have you paid so much money for a product that, in effect, you seem to only own in name only? Something is not quite right about that in MY humble opinion.

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  186. Well this is getting pretty political. I don’t believe that goverment should interfere into this matter. Anyway I would like to choose my operator from more than one operator. That is something that Apple should think about.

    Hopefully Ronald Reagan wasn’t the wisest man in the US.

    Reply

  187. @not fooled and anyone else with a twisted up memory of the eighties…

    Like him or not Reagan won landslides in BOTH elections. Impeachment was only brought up by house dems that thought they could use Iran/Contra to make the country hate Reagan. Didn’t work (same for Clinton on the other side of the aisle). Only difference is that Clinton barely won either of his elections.

    And as far as BC being a leader… well, JMHO but since when did sticking a saliva soaked finger in the wind constitute leadership? Not defending W here just pointing out mindless you partisans really are. I have yet to find a single person who can name five things that BC achieved (not breaking Graham/Rudman doesn’t count). Reagan’s achievements on the other hand are really undeniable. And don’t get into scandals or we’ll be here all day discussing them for every president all the way back to Washington.

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  190. “@Idiot From Finland…” said:
    <b>And your nation has been a world power since…?
    Eh…thought so.
    Also, check your NET pay and find out that you’re STILL paying for all that “free” stuff you listed <b>

    I live in the UK, and I still get the majority all that stuff (free education till university, free healthcare, free dental, free kids school meals, etc. The fact that we pay for it out of our taxes means more people get the same stuff – equality and all that. It doesn’t matter if your rich or poor – if you need healthcare, you get it. And we’re actually doing something to help with the environment, and climate change. Over here, global warming is not thought of as a myth – as it seems to be over in the US.
    And we are a world super power.

    Think before you speak. Or type in this case.

    On topic…
    Not so sure about AT+T in america, but in the UK it’s looking likely that O2 are going to be the exclusive carrier here. And they don’t have any reception where I live…
    If apple introduced the iPhone with a choice of carrier, it could be a good thing – as each carrier would be scrabbling to get the most subscribers, and subscription costs would plummet.

    I only hope that the subscriptions aren’t the same numbers as they are in the US, and rather are the same value. (i.e. $60 is £30)

    Reply

  191. I too am nonplussed by the MDN idiocy here. Why do you think my handle is what it is?

    1) If you think Reagan didn’t understand his own quotes, you don’t know Reagan. Seriously. Your ignorance is palpable.

    2) Republicans have their flaws, but generally meddling with the economy isn’t one of them.

    3) Reagan, when it comes to the economy at least, did practice what he preached.

    4) Reagan was embarrassing primarily because he exposed the Soviet Union for what it was. Yes, a lot of utopian socialists hated him for doing this and still do. And the Verona archives proved that he was right about the communist threat, more than anyone would have ever believed.

    5) Many foreign countries do not have to worry about defense due primarily to the largesse of the American people. Look at how much we spend on foreign aid and you’ll see what I mean. To ignore this (and the attitudes it fosters) is again, ignorant.

    6) Imperfect people still point to the truth. If you can’t get over that, then you have a serious problem with most people in the world.

    7) During his presidency, Reagan was overwhelmingly popular and generally conservative. That’s something which irks Democrats to this day. It also annoys the Rockefeller Republicans.

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  192. It’s all about free choice. If you don’t like the Apple/AT&T program then don’t buy the iPhone. Apple invested the R&D dollars they can make the choice of carrier. The f-cking politicians should find something useful to do – Oh wait a minute they’re useless to begin with!

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  193. @Chris:

    Thank you for being on topic, and for an interesting comment.

    However, it is not at all obvious from the article that the issue is what happens to the iPhone when the AT&T contract is terminated. The entire discussion was about the freedom to use the handset of choice with the network of choice. So, they were objecting to locking cell phones in general, and the iPhone was simply the most elegant example to illustrate their point.

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  194. MDN,

    There’s nothing efficient or “free market” about a monopoly…

    If you look at Apple’s strategy in releasing this thing, they obviously treated it like a monopoly with their exclusivity of contract and price premium. Even though consumers are willing to let Apple get away with these things, Apple’s shaving off more consumer surplus than they are gaining as profit. This isn’t the best for society as a whole. Free markets collapse at singularity…

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  195. Sam,

    There is no monopoly with the iPhone. People are free to buy any phone and use any carrier they want. If you use the iPhone the rules are AT&T and locked up phone. If you don’t like it don’t buy one you ass wipe commie-lib-terrorist lover! Who gives a flying fuck what Europeans thought about Reagan. Commies.

    Reply

  197. “We who live in free market societies believe that growth, prosperity and ultimately human fulfillment, are created from the bottom up, not the government down. Only when the human spirit is allowed to invent and create, only when individuals are given a personal stake in deciding economic policies and benefitting from their success — only then can societies remain economically alive, dynamic, progressive, and free… Everyday life confirms the fundamentally human and democratic ideal that individual effort deserves economic reward.”

    LOL

    That goes to 4000 dead in the Irak war !

    Reply

  198. MDN TOTALLY MISSED THE POINT WITH THIS ONE

    AND THEY ALSO MISLEAD THEIR AUDIENCE BY LEAVING OUT INFORMAITON!

    The whole point of the debate was that consumers should be able to buy any mobile device and use it with any a carrier of their choosing. The mobile device should not be locked into one carrier. The debate went on to say carriers should not have the option of turning off features in mobile devices like like wi-fi.
    Furthermore, one Democratic senator compared the iPhone on AT&T to a Ferrari stuck on a one lane 35 mph hi-way … the machine is capable of performing buy the infrastructure slows it down.
    The whole point of the discussion was that consumers should be able to take their iPhone to Verizon, Sprint, or any carrier of their choosing… in other words, the consumer should have more choice.
    WHATS COMMUNIST ABOUT THAT? DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH BEFORE YOU ACCEPT MDN’S ANALYSIS … the or several articles about this in WSJ.com; Businessweek.com; PcWorld.com, etc.

    Reply

  199. LOL! That’s rich!

    Did MDN really quote Ronald Reagan! Rahahahaha. I’ll remember that the next time Microsoft gets taken to task for locking in users with proprietary products and MDN decries their evil ways, which it has done many times over the years.

    Now Apple is doing many of the same things and I can only imagine the mental gymnastics required to rationalize their similar behaviour. I believe Apple has learned a thing or two from Microsoft.

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  200. We have the worst health care system in the industrial world, where the largest % of the popluation does not have adequeate coverage. We have men and women in harm’s way in the Middle East. We have an unsecured border. And Paris Hilton is skanky and free……do not our elected officials have anything better to do then debate if it is “fair” that AT&T has exclusive rights to the iPhone? For the love of God there are days I wish I was Canadian

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  202. The debate is not the fairness of Apple to partner with AT&T, it’s about the fairness of being locked to a carrier and having the carrier be able to defeat built-in features of a phone, even when the consumer has paid full price for the phone, in order to maintain the carriers vision of what a user should have to pay (try playing a song bought on your Sprint phone on any other playback device, as an example, or pairing your phone with your laptop using Bluetooth. It can be done on some, but many capable phones have had this feature limited by the carriers)

    But Congress laments with a forked tongue. The first step for phones to be interchangeable on networks would be to have a standard network interface, not the present mishmash of CDMA, TDMA and their predecessors and sucessors which have resulted from the undirected evolution of the wireless industry in the US. Congress has failed to provide the leadership to establish this environment, so the phones are not interoperable between networks because of the basic radio differences between networks. And it goes on from there, as bundled features are added to phones that are different between the major carriers.

    National interface standards are necessary for infrastructure items, which wireless phones are becoming. Roadways have legally defined widths, signage, turn radii, etc. This is needed so a car built in Michigan can be assured of being able to operate on the roads built in Colorado. The electrical grid is built to provide 110v, 60Hz AC to the end user, so that appliance makers and home bulders can know what interface to expect from the powerlines. Etc, etc etc. It’s just time to bite the cell phone bullet and correctly define the network as a stupid device with a simple interface that rents access at a competitive price instead of letting the carriers control the handset and use it as a vacuum cleaner on you wallet.

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  203. RR said much and did nothing. 10 million people died of AIDS before he even mentioned a word about it. Oh and George W. Bush I’m not going there. History will smash him in the ground and thank GOD for that, He killed almost 4000 troops in this senseless war, not to mention all the scandals in the Republican Party.

    Hillary & Bill 08 to give us our country back!!

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  204. Nate

    Republicans prove again to be right on the money while democrats show their true communist colors. Europe is a soicalist hell! OGFF you pasty skinned freak.

    Spare us Nate. The Communists had a propensity to invade sovereign nation under the pretense of saving them from said nations current government. Which American political party has been doing that regularly for the last 50 years?

    Magic Word: “deep” as in “most USAnians political knowledge doesn’t seem to be very deep”.

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  205. FYI, Gary, I do own an iPhone and like it very much. Perhaps I should have used the term “monopolistic” to describe the iPhone market–it is extremely differentiated from the competition, sort of like how the windows platform was from, say, mac os in the middle of the last decade. The hyper-differentiation allows the producer to produce where marginal cost is equal to marginal revenue, then charge the consumer a WAY higher price on his demand line–we see this in the enormous profit margins. While we still demand this thing, we aren’t as well off as a free market would allow us to be. Imagine if there was a product that came close to this–no way apple would be able to get us to make these concessions. Go get educated, you fucking ad-hominem prick.

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  207. “And yet all of the repub tax breaks are always for the top…”

    That is such a tired, and false, argument. I am far from the top, and have benefited from said tax breaks. I am smack in the middle of the middle class, and my effective tax rate after my return was 5%.

    I’ll take that any day.

    Oh, and poor people can get treated at county hospitals. They CANNOT refuse to treat anyone.

    Also, at least Regan didn’t sell secrets to the Chinese for some time in the Lincoln bedroom.

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  208. Two serious questions for serious, fair minded, thinking Republicans (i.e. someone that can admit that sometimes their party is wrong and sometimes the other party is correct)

    (tangent: I am deeply uncomfortable with the notion of “party” – democracy, in my opinion, REQUIRES that the citizens be independent, non-partisan, and choose based on merits, not party. It also requires that bribery be illegal (“campaign finance”), and that politicians that gain elected office by committing to do something that they fail to do (or worse, do the opposite) be charged with fraud – lots of work to do on that last one…).

    1. The Reagan quote is interesting and, in my view reasonable but it avoids a big issue: what benefit is there to monopolies and near monopolies, anti-competitive collusion etc.?

    (I would argue that locking a phone to a carrier is anti-competitive collusion. Let AT&T offer fancy, server based visual voicemail, but don’t lock the phone – compete with other GSM carriers like T-Mobile by letting the customer choose the GSM carrier. And no exclusives – no deals forcing Apple to not make a CDMA phone for Verizon etc. next year, if they want. And make it illegal for a carrier to not hook up a customer with their own phone, assuming they pay their bill etc.).

    Is it reasonable to take steps to ensure companies stay under certain market share sizes, consolidation is limited etc.?

    In other words, there are reasonable bounds/limits on capitalism that must be taken to ensure vigorous competition for the hearts and minds of customers, particularly by providing good value at a good price, while reasonably protecting companies that truly come up with innovations. And, in the interest of vigorous competition, these limitations should be particularly aggressive when large companies are involved, competition is poor etc.

    2. Since, for example, nobody complains about competition for Fire Departments, is it reasonable to conclude that certain important services are best universally available, i.e. funded by the government?

    Notice that this says nothing about delivery, just that its paid by the government, and, of course, properly done, audited etc. (the good value at a good price thing again).

    I can’t think of any private sector Fire Departments, but I can’t see any reason they shouldn’t exist, as long as they don’t engage in cost cutting that reduces service without approval, don’t go around starting fires to increase revenue (good value, good price, yet again).

    Since it works for the Fire Department, the Police Department etc., why isn’t this done for health care?

    In other words, keep the current system of providers, generally, but have a single payer system (the government), that is, eliminate all of the pre-existing condition crap, and just pay the bill. The GAO some time ago figured out that this would save enough money to give 100% coverage to everybody, i.e. ignoring pre-existing conditions.

    It also needs to be said that ALL health care EVERYWHERE is rationed; health care is already more expensive than ANY economy can afford. For example, some of the new, high end drugs for cancer cost more than $100,000 per year.

    And the U.S. currently pays around 15% of total economic output on health care, yet only covers something like 80% of the population, and, for the 80%, plays big time games with denial of reasonable medical service. Of course massive mega-costs like $100,000/year cancer drugs are severely restricted, as they must be, sadly, at least until the economy grows/the price comes down.

    Canada, on the other hand, pays something like 8% of total economic output on health care (lets round this up – say at 60% of the cost, per person, that people pay in the U.S., on average), covers 100% of the population and does not engage in denial of reasonable medical service for anybody. Of course, again, massive mega-costs like $100,000/year cancer drugs are severely restricted, i.e. not paid, like everywhere.

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  209. All of you democrats get in a huge uproar about them quotint Reagon. Who cares? If Clinton, or any other democrat president said that quote, It would deserve to be said. The fact of the matter is, that whether a democrat or republican said it, it’s still a good quote and worthy of being noted. So really, who cares who said it?

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  210. “..That is such a tired, and false, argument. I am far from the top, and have benefited from said tax breaks. I am smack in the middle of the middle class, and my effective tax rate after my return was 5%…”

    No one denies that everyone one received some reduction in taxes, but the fact is the tax break disproportionately benefited extremely wealthy taxpayers, and the disparity in income between the wealthiest and poorest in American is the highest it has been since the age of the robber-barons. The problem with this old “trickle-down” theory is that in today’s global economy funds trickle out – internationally – not down. Bush Senior once said it’s “Voodoo Economics”.

    ‘…Tis the time’s plague, when madmen lead the blind…
    King Lear, Act IV, Scene 1

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  211. Hey “sure I am relieved”. do you know how long you have to wait to see a doctor in Canada? Very long. Canadian health care is awful and is more of a dread than trying to accomplish anything at the DMV in any major metropolotin area in the US. Big government = less efficiency, the loss of a work ethic, and terrible quality. Health care would be god awful if it were run by our government.

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  214. dandolf:

    1. Wait time to see a doctor in Canada, last time I went in Canada was same day – call in the morning and get an afternoon appointment. I would call that a wait time of zero.

    I understand that some smaller Canadian communities have trouble attracting doctors (I was in a big city). On the other hand, for the two non family people I know who live in small towns, they got next day appointments, worst case. Ditto for my small town Canadian parents.

    Of course this is a small, unscientific sample, but I’ve never heard anybody complain about doctor wait times, that had facts to back them up. Of course I’m extremely skeptical about information from partisan ideologues and lobbyists, and demand hard data.

    Of course if you live in the Canadian arctic things are surely different, but very few people live in the Canadian arctic, and everything is different in the Canadian arctic.

    2. Again, when I was in Canada, I didn’t have any problems with the health care I or people I know received.

    One of the better ways to measure health care is infant mortality, since mothers generally try really hard to take care of their babies. This also inherently takes into account doctor wait times since babies can get sick really quickly. A number of people have been saying that U.S. has higher infant mortality than other major industrialized countries, so I thought I would check.

    A google search on

    canada infant mortality

    brought up

    http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004393.html

    This revealed that the U.S. has 6.4 deaths per 1000 births, Canada has 4.6.

    Note that Canada has particular challenges in providing services, and the U.S. has particular advantages – Canada is a significantly larger country than the U.S. yet has only 10% of the U.S. population. Yet Canada does better at infant mortality.

    3. I agree that big government = big efficiency, but nobody was saying anything about big government, only about single (government) paid universal coverage.

    This would have no adverse affect on the work ethic of the people actually providing medical care, and, in fact, since they would not have to fight with a HMO, would surely improve the work ethic.

    In the case of health care, there is a severe quality problem in the U.S. due to HMO’s denying service – ORDERING the doctor to provide poor quality. Universal coverage eliminates that. It also eliminates the tremendous cost of chasing down payments/getting approvals from HMOs and chasing uninsured people for payment.

    As regards quality of approved services, the lawyers would simply switch from suing HMOs to suing doctors, when necessary. I would expect a lot of them would need to find new target category, however.

    (note to lawyers: how is that class action lawsuit against Microsoft coming? The one for gross negligence as regards security – failing to protect the kernel – users running as root).

    Let me be clear: by switching to a universal, single payer system, the U.S. health care system would save enough to give everybody universal coverage, eliminate pre-existing condition based denial of care and other denial dirty tricks AND save roughly 40%.

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  217. The sheer, breathtaking cynicism it takes for the bought-and-paid-for Republicans on that committee to actually tout exclusive, locked-in contracts with all-powerful wireless carrier oligopolies–lock-ins that have made U.S. consumers want to explode with frustration, and stifled innovation in American cell phones (compared to Asia and Europe)–as examples of the working of a FREE MARKET, or of CONSUMER CHOICE!–well, it pretty much beggars description.

    Do these people have any connection to reality at all? In a free market, the different venders and purchasers can actually choose who they most want to do business with, without special privileges or oligopolies warping and obstructing the market’s operation.

    That ain’t the U.S. cell phone market. Markey has it exactly right.

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  226. It figures democrats (and ignorant liberal posters here) would want to punish hard work and creativity. Communists in disguise. Kill free speech. Put themselves in charge of making life decisions for everyone else. This democrat controlled congress has not accomplished anything but Bush bashing. Pathetic losers.

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  228. “Hey TowerTone,
    Why did you reply to “W For” at all? It’s pretty clear he wasn’t looking to debate you, just hurl insults. He wasn’t doing the best job of it either.”

    Actually, I could not think of the quotes he was talking about and I wanted to know. Then it became obvious he had no clue, so I gave him some rope.

    And you’re right, he didn’t want to debate, he wanted to dare, so I took him up on it.

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  229. “… Put themselves in charge of making life decisions for everyone else….”

    Isn’t that what neo-cons and so-called “Christian”Right want to do in the name of “sanctity of life”, but it’s obviously only life in utero to which they’re referring. Sufficiently postpartum, and it’s open season. Doesn’t sound very Christian to me.

    “…This democrat controlled congress has not accomplished anything but Bush bashing…”

    Any bashing Bush is getting now may be nothing like the one historians will give him: Iraq War may be the greatest strategic blunder in US history (the Bush Administration had been warned that the intelligence on WMD was soft and what the most likely consequences of invasion would be), turning a surplus into the greatest deficit in US history, cronyism with the resultant Katrina debacle, politicization of the offices of the Attorney General and Surgeon General, creating an enormous disparity in wealth with tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy (Bush said that his tax break would benefit those in the lower end of the scale, but this turned out to be untrue).

    Readers in other countries should know that fewer than 29% of Americans share the high regard of Bush expressed in some of the comments here, which parrot the often erroneous statements talk-show hosts and pundits, who delight partisans and make their publishers rich, but impoverish political discourse.

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  230. “<<Comment from: Mr. Reeee
    Reagan: The SECOND most embarrassing president in recent history.

    Who’s in FIRST? Gee… tough one there.>>

    Well said Sir.”

    Just case anyone needs the clarification of the w”most embarrassing president in recent history”, that would be Bill “BJ” Clinton.

    Liberalism is a mental disease, as is borne out by the postings of some of them on this board. Please do the world a favor and shoot yourselves. You are brainless twits, with not a modicum of common sense – and no one likes you.

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  232. You Canadians are full of shit. Ohio is the hip replacement capital of the world for Canadians. Why are they going to Ohio???????? Why does it take so long to get an MRI??????? Don’t try to fool us, your health care system sucks donkey balls.

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  233. “…Liberalism is a mental disease, as is borne out by the postings of some of them on this board. Please do the world a favor and shoot yourselves. You are brainless twits, with not a modicum of common sense – and no one likes you..”

    Hey Chris, lighten up, and get a grip. No one looks very intelligent by name-calling and making ad hominem attacks on anyone who has a dissenting opinion.

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  234. George Bush will be proven right. He is doing the right thing. Don’t let these liberals cry babies fool you and the left wing media polls. Bush is heavily supported in the US.

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  236. “Hey Chris, lighten up, and get a grip. No one looks very intelligent by name-calling and making ad hominem attacks on anyone who has a dissenting opinion.”

    Spoken like a true liberal, lol. Grow a set, will ya? Please? For the good of mankind?

    Besides which, why don’t you liberals take your own advice? Oh, I am sorry, I fogot – another fine quality of Liberals is hypocrisy. You berate the hell out Regan and conservatives, then get all pissy when someone berates you. QQ!!

    As I said before – do the world a favor and shoot yourselves. The world would be a MUCH better place without you spineless twits in it.

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  238. “Bush is heavily supported in the US”? WTF?

    There has not been a president with approval ratings this low since Nixon, during Watergate.

    The only way to find heavy support for Bush is to poll Fox News viewers. Sometimes–no, actually nearly all the time, now–I am frightened by how far outside the mainstream Republicans have gotten, and by how little connection what they believe and scream at the rest of us has to do with anything going on out here in the real world.

    Look at any public opinion poll over the past three years, and you will find Democratic and Independent opinions tracking together closely on most public issues. Which to me suggests that Democratic opinion moves in at least roughly the same directions as the opinions of people who don’t have a personal stake in partisan politics.

    But the Republicans are always off on their own, completely different tangent, about 30 or 40 points away from the rest of the country. (For instance, I think a *majority* of Republicans surveyed still say that they think invading Iraq was a good idea! Even if only by a few points.)

    Thank God they’re not running the whole country anymore.

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  239. I also wonder how many of the different ‘Republican’ name-callers on this page are sock puppets–including at least one transgender sock puppet (Alison) for one weird, freaky, obsessive man, or boy, who posts over and over and over and over.

    Because it might just be the Republican knack for marching in lockstep, but they all write like exactly the same person.

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  240. “…As I said before – do the world a favor and shoot yourselves…”

    Well figuratively, that’s what you’ve done: you’ve totally destroyed your credibility. Does anyone beside you think that name-calling is manly?

    I voted for Reagan, and I believe he was the best candidate at that time. But at least two of his former staff, Bruce Bartlett and Peggy Noonan (his best speech writer in my opinion) have given up on Bush. Bartlett wrote a book, titled “Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy” and Noonan has publicly stated that she had never seen anyone “squander” (her words) so much.

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  241. Mr. Huck,

    You reak of jealous rage at the Republican greatness. Everything is going to be just fine. We will take very good care you. GWB will one day proven right. What is it going to take to maker the leftists realize the threat facing them and the world. Muslims fanatics don’t care about US policy. They just want to kill everyone that isn’t like them. It’s basically kill or be killed with them.

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  246. Why is quoting Reagan injecting politics? That’s upsurd but I’ll be happy to submit my view. Reagan is widely regarded as one of the great American presidents by historians on both sides of the political spectrum. He won in LANDSLIDE victories over Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale. They weren’t even close. People forget the Iran hostage crisis, the Cold War, and double digit inflation. Why do you think so many people voted for him again? We were all better off after the disasterous Carter years and Reagan making friends with Gorbachov. Carter’s only claim to fame was helping to broker peace between Israel and Egypt yet somehow he is now deservedly regarded as an antisemite after his last book. We all love our iPhones and Macs because of the capitalist free market society we live in. Without it there would be no incentive to build these great products or companies. Government run healthcare, industry, and censorship (see “fairness doctorine”) is the hallmark of many failed countries. If you find the fact that MDN quoted Reagan offensive, then go get your news somewhere else. …and get a life.

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  247. To the person that wrote the below quote: You are absolutely out of your mind. Thank you for your visit to fantasy island. Maybe you should ask the doctors what they think… btw, how many liver transplants are they doing in Cuba?

    “In the case of health care, there is a severe quality problem in the U.S. due to HMO’s denying service – ORDERING the doctor to provide poor quality. Universal coverage eliminates that. It also eliminates the tremendous cost of chasing down payments/getting approvals from HMOs and chasing uninsured people for payment.

    As regards quality of approved services, the lawyers would simply switch from suing HMOs to suing doctors, when necessary. I would expect a lot of them would need to find new target category, however.

    Let me be clear: by switching to a universal, single payer system, the U.S. health care system would save enough to give everybody universal coverage, eliminate pre-existing condition based denial of care and other denial dirty tricks AND save roughly 40%.”

    Reply

  248. They also all spell like the same person–almost not like a native speaker of English at all. (“Upsurd,” “reak.”)

    Ergo, they are all the same, more-than-a-little-weird person.

    Maybe you could get a job as W’s body servant when this is all over. He seems to love having people around who tell him things like this:

    “George Bush is strongly backed by the US public and will go down in history as the best presidents [sic] ever!!!!!”

    Sometimes he even nominates them for the Supreme Court.

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  250. Tim:

    1. After stripping off the unhelpful, disappointing vulgarity you raise a good, not-yet-covered point: wait times for non life threatening conditions like hip and knee replacement operations, and high end diagnostic imaging – CT scans, MRI, PET scans.

    “Non life threatening” is not to say that joint replacement is not important, since it can result in chronic pain and can be fixed without bankrupting the country.

    It is, however, a good indicator of hospital capacity – obviously a hospital treating more life threatening emergencies is going to delay inherently non emergency joint replacements. So, if joint replacements are heavily backlogged, there is insufficient capacity and the population isn’t being well served.

    2. There have been reports of wait time issues in the Canadian press. Are things so bad that Canadians need to go to, for example, Ohio for hip replacements?

    A google search on

    health care wait time

    brings up

    http://www.health.gov.on.ca/transformation/wait_times/public/wt_public_mn.html#

    for Ontario, the largest province in Canada by population, at around 12 million of the total population of just over 30 million. Ontario is also the closest province to Ohio.

    clicking on “Wait times in your area”

    brings up wait time info for cancer surgery, cardiac, cataract surgery, diagnostic scans, joint replacement.

    Bringing up the numbers for hip replacement, map view, GTA (Toronto area, a big city with lots of hospitals) brings up the provincial target of 182 days (around 6 months), and the actual numbers for Feb – Mar 2007 are:

    (excluding special note hospital) 92 – 213 days, provincial average 252 days. Clicking shortest reveals another hospital at 54 days.

    Not surprising that big city hospitals do better, presumably economy of scale. If you live in a smaller city/town and don’t want to travel, well, like all small cities, you miss out on some specialized things like fast hip replacements.

    3. One needs to be careful about anecdotal stories, they tend to be untrue/exaggerated (see scopes.com) but why would somebody go to Ohio for a hip replacement from Canada?

    One possible reason is that the best time available, at 54 days, is simply too long, and Ohio can do it, at equivalent quality, say, next week, if you pay cash and travel further.

    54 days for a major operation like hip surgery seems reasonable, particularly since it is at zero cost (is taxpayer paid). But if you want immediate service, go for it – bring cash and jump on a plane.

    4. What about MRI’s?

    Provincial target is 28 days, average is 108 days, GTA range is 40-118, best in province is 20.

    Is this good? While not amazing, it seems ok but needs to improve.

    I notice that (even more expensive) PET scans aren’t even tracked – I expect there aren’t many PET scanners available.

    Note that a big chunk of MRI time is pre-reserved for emergencies and surgery – we’re only talking about second tier urgency.

    5. Now does this suck or is it a reasonable balance between cost and outcomes?

    Remembering that everyone is covered for 100% of medically necessary treatments, without an intermediary (an HMO), excluding mega-expensive drugs(see previous post) it seems pretty decent.

    When you consider that, in addition to covering everybody for everything, it costs ONLY SIXTY PERCENT of the U.S. system, I have trouble understanding how anybody could seriously advocate for the U.S. style system.

    Said another way, fire the HMOs, cover everybody for all things currently provided and save 40%.

    Why wouldn’t everybody want this, after having done their homework (obtained the facts), assuming logic and an open mind, of course?

    Reply

  251. Who saves 40%? Me and you? The government? The insurance companies? It won’t be me and you, that I promise. Most people don’t even have HMO’s. If you do, then pay the extra few bucks and get a PPO. Regardless, everyone gets healthcare in the US. Just walk into any emergency room and their is a doctor of every specialty covering and willing to help you for free if you can’t afford the care. It’s the law. That aside, does anyone really think that all these great docs in the US are going to work for peanuts in a national health care system? Not in a million years. All the best people will leave in a heartbeat or just wont take any insurance (ie pay up front in cash for your colon surgery or go to the guy who just graduated from a foreign med school). Its not worth the risk, liability, and stress to work at HMO/Medicare rates only. You are not going to get the Derek Jeter’s of healthcare to play little league. I’m sorry, its just not going to happen. As for me I’d rather flip burgers.

    Reply

  252. Ok, so back to the topic. Were the democrats serious about wanting to legislate Apple and ATT’s deal? No they weren’t (they couldn’t have been could they?). They were just annoyed that they didn’t plan ahead and not renew their contract with their carriers. They are all probably windows users anyway. Besides, I’m sure most of them can afford to pay the extra $100 bucks or so to get out of their contract. Maybe if we all chipped in a penny each….

    Have we beaten this topic to death yet???

    Reply

  253. I know that standards are slipping, but surely “NYC Doc” should be able to spell words like “upsurd” (absurd), “disasterous” (disastrous), and most tellingly “doctorine” (doctrine). Got a little irritable vowel syndrome there, doc?

    I don’t care if he’s liberal, conservative or a little green man from Alpha Centauri but he’s the last man I want writing my notes or prescriptions: I don’t want to go in for an ingrown toenail and come out missing a kidney. I’m not sure, but I suspect he got his medical degree from the correspondence college above the dry cleaners in Panama – or he might just be a right-wing troll who has decided to come out from under his bridge.

    Reply

  256. Hey, I just found out that Safari has spellcheck! I’m probably the last person to realize that. No wonder you are all such good spellers!

    Thanks fartacus but you spelled “F” wrong. (Spellchecker caught that one!) ” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” />

    Reply

  257. …I looked over the vast political landscape. I was compelled to make my own contribution. I took the Congressional Republicans and committed them all to the left side of my ass. I took the Congressional Democrats and committed them all to the right side of my ass. There they were to become unwilling witnesses to one of the more horrific aspects of human nature. There would be no subtleties for the elected. There afixed as they were they suffered the hellish reality of the human animal. After a time they were released. I have given them a fresh opinion of freedom. I have made my contribution.

    Reply

  259. You libs have no argument. The doc from NYC probably typed it fast in between much more important things he was doing. You trolls have no comeback but to be the spelling police. Go F yourself.

    Replacing the letters A & B with U & P is not a typing error; look at the keyboard – they’re in completely different places. It’s basic literacy, as is being able to pronounce the word “nuclear”.

    Also, unless he’s a resident in an ER, the idea that a doctor (which covers a multitude of sins: podiatrist? periodontist? maybe he does plastic?, maybe he’s not really a medical doctor) is doing anything other than making their second martini of the evening by 7pm on a Saturday is truly laughable. Maybe somebody rang him in the middle of his post with an important gum emergency. Or there’s a terrible epidemic of bunions in the Big Apple.

    Doctors that can’t type or spell, pharmacists that can’t read: tell you what, pass me the leeches and I’ll look after myself.

    Reply

  262. Ok Spartacus, since you asked, I’m a laparoscopic surgeon and a trauma surgeon. I went to Ivy League schools and did my specialty training at one of the best hospitals in the country. None of that makes me qualified to say anything about politics, Macs, or iPhones. Since we are on the topic though, what do you do?

    I took the typos on the chin and even made fun of myself as well. Can we all assume that you agree with the substance of my posts but are obsessive/compulsive about spelling? If not, we would all love for you to enlighten us with your wisdom. Prove to us that liberals are more than name callers and focus on the content. The right always says that the left never has any ideas. Here is your chance to prove us wrong.

    Reply

  264. Ronald Reagan was far from clueless. Leave it to a supposed compassionate lib to take a nasty cheap shot at someone great who ended up with Alzheimers. You hypocrites never cease to amaze. No wonder you’re laughed at by anyone with any intelligence.

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  266. “…I went to Ivy League schools and did my specialty training at one of the best hospitals in the country…”

    So did I, and I have held faculty position there also.

    You say liberals are name callers. Have you read Ann Coulter? Have you heard Rush Limbaugh? I can show specific examples of where both made statements that can be readily proved false. There probably are liberal name callers, can you name a few? Can you cite a few examples some specific statements that you find offensive?

    A surgeon? Thinking of the definition of a proctoscope, I would have guessed a proctologist.

    Reply

  267. The same liberal vomit…

    “We will be welcomed as liberators”

    “Saddam’s stockpiles of WMD’s”

    “Al Queda in Iraq”

    3000 plus dead soldiers for lies, but it’s the “liberals” who are the problem.

    So many detractors of politics want to pretend there is no difference between the two US parties. So here’s a clue: tens of thousands of maimed men and women and soon to be four thousand grave markers are mute testament to the fact that the chicken hawks and the current administration they support are the worst thing to happen to the US in recent memory.

    Face it. The attacks on “liberals” and “traitors” is the charade of the hard right, trying to cover up it’s mistakes for backing the wrong horse, when some of the neo-con crazies can even admit that they’ve made a mistake.

    Reply

  268. Liberals are really very sick people. Who started the battle? Terrorists attacked the US unprovoked many times abroad then on US soil. Iran has to go next then Syria. This is going to be a long drawn out battle. Take your tiny little heads out of the sand and get ready for many more lives to be taken before this is resolved. These Muslim terrorists will not stop no matter what we do. So we have to stop them dead in their tracks. Period. What are you libs going to say when the terrorists nuke a western city????????? Blame GWB????? What a cop out. Read the earlier posted link to the Daily Mail article to see why your arguments are not valid.

    Reply

  269. Liberals are name callers. Look at the posts here for an example. Al Franken, Barbara Streisand, Clintons, Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi, Cindy Shehan, Murtha, etc. Makes you want to vomit thinking about those terrorist loving commies.

    Reply

  273. No smart Republicans rip Steve Jobs on his computer genius. I haven’t seen one post ripping him on that here. Just because he’s a political neophite doesn’t mean he can’t make great computers. Everyone isn’t an expert in every field Steve.

    Reply

  274. Monopolies suck. Always. A free market requires competition. Two year contracts with phone companies just stifle competition which puts the US even further behind the rest of the world in phone technology. But since US phone companies are willing to pay politicians big campaign bucks, the US will just continue to grind down to a 3rd rate nation. Corruption does not lead to innovation.

    Reply

  279. Wow, faculty practice! How many hours did it take to land that? So impressive and you get to wear a white coat too I bet. Too bad nobody asked you what you do. Looks like everyone has already beat me to the punch with your questions. Now maybe you can answer why you think Ronald Reagan was not worth quoting. By the way, anyone see the great Speller Spartacus?

    Reply

  282. Ironic,
    Agreed…. I have a strong feeling that at least half of the people who post here, have no idea what the liberal or conservative philosophies even are, nor do they have any clue what the words “commie”, “socialist”, “nazi”, or “fascist” even mean. They just think it makes them sound smarter to use those words than words like “A-hole”.

    Let’s take Mary for example. Her comment, “Liberals are very, very, confused people. Living in a fantasy world,” is very fascinating. Truly, Mary, you’ve exerted an incredible amount of brainpower constructing such an analysis. Put that together during a NSCAR commercial?!

    Anyone willing to pay attention knows that both liberals and conservatives have the best interests of the country at heart, they just disagree on how to get there. The only exception would be people like Hatman who are truly deranged and have no philosophy other than bloodlust.

    On terms of governance, I consider myself a conservative… and not the bastardized version that the Republican party represents these days. True conservatives believe in a weak federal government, whose primary function (pretty much only function) should be foreign policy and national defense. True conservatives believe in trade policies that don’t make us dependent on rival nations, believe in strong fiscal discipline, and NO GODDAMN social engineering. Republicans are as bad as Democrats these days over that. True conservatives are also environmentalist (and not in a tree hugger way), knowing that guarding our resources guarantees our superior positioning in trade and fiscal independence.

    Both liberals and conservatives relish freedom. Neither party these days is looking out for Joe Blow, nor his freedom, nor his well-being. The sooner everyone finally starts to realize the sham both parties have become, the sooner America will unify and make real, solid progress. Until then, we’re just children hurling insults.

    Reply

  283. That’s a nice attempt HR. Too simplified but nice try. You forget the Islamic terrorist mess that has been hurled upon us. You other conspiricy theorists that think I’m the same person as some other poster are showing how out of touch you really are. Get a life.

    Reply

  287. The Iraqis are fully staffed, and — and they’ve got their team in there, but we don’t. And so, what Gen. Petraeus is saying — some early signs, still dangerous, but give me — give my chance a plan to work.
    — Interview with PBS’ Charlie Rose, Apr. 24, 2007

    Idiot.

    Reply

  289. Always,
    Mary is an idiot regardless of what her/his philosophy is. However, I don’t think somebody is an idiot BECAUSE of their philosophy. You have posted some very valid points of view, as have people like TowerTone who lean conservative.

    My only serious gripe with TowerTone is his assertion in an earlier thread that moderates have no philosophy, and thus believe in nothing, with which I take serious umbrage. Just because I take the time to educate myself on another’s point of view, or because I choose not to pigeon-hole all of my beliefs into one of two distinct, bastardized labels, does not mean I have no beliefs… and telling me I don’t without knowing me or because you have an ignorant, narrow-minded stereotypical vision of moderates will do nothing except seriously piss me off. Sorry, TowerTone, but I had to get that off my chest.

    Reply

  290. Fine, HR
    Define moderate.
    I have stated before, some of my beliefs are not conservative.
    Does that make me a moderate? Are we going for an average?
    In that case, yes.
    My gripe is with people who call libs or conservative “wingnuts”.
    Most issues are actually black and white. You can define some grey, but you at that point accepted one point of view and diluted it.
    Abortion. Ok or not? I have no problem with first trimester (as if I am the one who anyone should worry about pleasing).
    Does this make me a moderate? No. Abortion is wrong. Period. But I have rationalized that society considers early abortions ok, so rather than stand on the roadside with dead embryo pictures, I have moved on. Just don’t use my tax dollars to pay for it.

    Almost any position could be called moderate when compared to the extremes.
    For instance, Gun control. Against it? Well, so my neightbor can buy a bazooka? No…..moderation.
    Condoms, the pill, vasectomy, are they ok? Let’s ask the Pope.

    So, HR, here is MY rage. Not at people who have opinions based on their religion, culture, country and so on that are both conservative (as I am fically) or liberal (as I am on many social issues), which may average out moderate to some, but at those who simply bitch at any ideas without forming one of their own.
    When I hear someone complaining about the war, and I ask them what they would do, and they say “I don’t know”, then they are showing laziness. Democracies (or Federal Republics) depend on the educated (of issues) to drive agendas that our representative are to act upon.

    Now, name me The Great Moderate Leaders of History.
    (and for controlling anger, I recommend a moderate amount of wine ” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”tongue wink” style=”border:0;” />

    Reply

  291. NYC Doc…

    Been around, just haven’t been able to post as I’ve been busy with clients’ issues.

    But if you want to start up again, here’s a question about state-run medical services seeing as you asked if I had any substantive issues other than your inability to type, so here goes.

    I’ll admit that single-payer systems may not be perfect and waiting times may be less than optimal dependent on where you live or your specific condition, but maybe you can explain to us all how these countries which – compared to the USA – all spend less per head on health, have lower GDP per capita, spend a lower percentage of GDP on health and yet have better life expectancies and lower infant mortality rates just to pick two stats out of the bag.

    Maybe you could also explain how – in the “perfect” US health system – it is estimated that approximately 90,000 people die annually from MRSA; people go in to hospitals and other institutions to be cured or seek respite from illnesses not to acquire other infections which kill them. Maybe you could explain how The Netherlands and France – to name just two countries with single-payer systems – have either proven strategies to deal with MRSA or no substantive record of MRSA? Could it be that systems which are run for the social good as opposed to profit have a different perspective on, let’s say for argument, keeping hospitals and other institutions free from infection?

    The problem with the “Canadians travelling to Ohio” story is that it isolates a single surgical issue and extrapolates that issue to be representative of the Canadian medical system; that would be about as ludicrous as taking some of the stories of how people with ongoing chronic conditions, such as diabetes, can suddenly find themselves denied insurance, leading to debt and worse to manage their conditions and saying that’s representative of the private health sector.

    However, it could be argued that the private health care system as engineered in the US is exceptionally good at delivering on what could be termed the “sexy” end of medicine (i.e. the ground-breaking research and innovative techniques on rare and hitherto untreatable conditions), but it fails on the 80% of conditions that actually kill people like diabetes. And I would further argue that my position is supported by my earlier factually-supported statement on life expectancies.

    That may not suit your specific argument or speciality, but it doesn’t make it any less true.

    Reply

  293. Fine, TowerTone…. I see your position. But then the point is, how do we define the labels and do all of us see the definitions as the same? I think you and I are very much alike– I consider myself a fiscal conservative, and a conservative in terms of governance, but I sway more liberally on social issues. If anything, I’m probably more libertarian than anything. But how do I define that to somebody I meet? I like to say moderate because my beliefs don’t fall into neatly distinctive left, right, and middle categories.

    I find abortion wrong. However, it’s not my decision. That’s my belief, TowerTone. And I believe more strongly in a government NOT having the power to tell someone what to do with their bodies. The point here is yes, things are usually black-and-white in their simplest essence. Abortion = wrong. Government intrusion on how we live our lives = wrong. What happens when the two overlap? I can’t be against abortion AND government interference in what women choose to do with their own bodies, so I pick the issue I feel more strongly about, which is government should not intrude on peoples’ lives. Ergo, I have to be more lenient on the abortion position. Ergo, two black-and-whites make gray. And there is a LOT of overlap on these issues that cause me to pick my battles in the issues I choose to favor or oppose.

    For simplicity sake, because the issues I favor and oppose are unique outside of the over-simplistic liberal, conservative realm (which these days don’t mean anything anyway, since people have mutilated their meaning), I choose to say I’m a moderate. I have some liberal beliefs. I have some conservative beliefs. But I DO have beliefs.

    I DO agree with you on people who bash a position without having one of their own, but that is not a characteristic of only moderates, which from your prior postings I have assumed you meant. I usually back up my positions: for instance, I am against this war. My counter to it, in overly simplified terms, would be to funnel the 400 billion we are spending on it into efforts that will actually protect our country: improving our intelligence community, more resources for the FBI, more resources for the CIA, more resources and training for local law enforcement, more resources for Special Ops, more Special Ops missions and surgical strikes, improved diplomatic relations with friendly and neutral countries, and more resources toward crippling Al-Qaeda’s financial network. I don’t believe this war can be won in “surges”, it will be one with pinpoint, precise attacks based on intelligence information. There. That’s my belief. I may be wrong but it is my stand on the subject.

    My issue with your statement on moderates is that you don’t understand what a moderate is. People with no opinions are not moderates, they are just people with no opinions. I am a moderate, I am happy to be a moderate, and I will continu to rally against people who complain that “I don’t care about anything”, because that’s just plain wrong.

    P.S. LOL about the wine…. had some with my girlfriend last night. Now I need something to moderate the hangover. ” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />

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  294. This Always Wrong cretan is always hurling insults at everyone. How about giving us your plan for a better world sir. The US economy is booming and Bush’s tax cuts are working as predicted. Interesting how the main stream media never talks about it. I wonder why?????

    Reply

  296. TwinCities…

    It’s because if you call the Daily Mail a newspaper, you have to start calling the National Enquirer an investigative news publication and then you have to start calling Fox News a place where professional journalists go and work and, after that, all our standards have gone to crap.

    The Daily Mail is still controlled by the same family who used to control it when it sympathised with the Nazis and argued against the UK becoming involved in what became WWII and a former employee is quoted as saying “The ideal Daily Mail story leaves the reader hating somebody or something”.

    I’ll make a deal with you, I’ll start considering the pronouncements of the Daily Mail as something approaching journalism when a) they go a whole year without losing a libel trial or having to make an out-of-court settlement and b) they allow women to come to work without insisting they wear skirts. That said, I should be grateful that the Daily Mail allows women to work there at all, given its pronouncements about the dangers of wives and mothers going to work.

    One of the other things that will have to happen is that the editor-in-chief will have to stop being such an unmitigated hypocrite: describing the leader of the Fire Brigades Union in the UK as a “fat cat” because of his UK£80K+ salary and £60K+ expense allowance might seem valid enough, but not coming from a man who gets paid over UK£1M and gets help paying for his London home as well.

    If you can get all of that sorted out, we can pay attention to the rambling of the comic that is the fountainhead of middle-class racism in the UK but still managed to be indignant to the murder of Stephen Lawrence (who was murdered by a gang of racist thugs) when the EIC realised that – at the time of the murder – Lawrence’s father had been working at his home as a plasterer.

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  299. So what about the Daily Mail. How about the fact that is written by a former terrorist? No comment from you libs on that! Pathetic. As usual you libs through out a nonsense red herring and avoid the reall issues. Losers.

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  300. Major omission in my earlier post:

    Regarding the lowball estimate of 40% (its more like 50-60%, but I’m being very cautious) extra paid in the U.S. for health care coverage, per capita (i.e. per person, on average), as compared to other countries that not only pay less, they cover everybody, and have better outcomes – better health results – infant mortality, life expectancy especially:

    I neglected to mention prescription drug prices. It would seem to be apparent that drug prices should be negotiated at the national level, between the drug companies and, say, the FDA, given that the drug companies have an exclusive patent, that is, a monopoly.

    In fact, every major industrialized country does this except for the U.S., where drug companies with patented medicines are allowed to charge whatever they want.

    The drug companies are crafty, however – they Pull A Tobacco – they “donate” (some would say, engage in (sadly) legal bribery) massively, to enough politicians of both major parties that their interests, rather than the people’s interest, carry the day.

    The poster child for this is the prescription drug benefit where medicare is BANNED from negotiating prices in what is likely the largest purchase of prescription drugs in the world. This is projected to cost 100 BILLION over 10 years vs. a negotiated price. Talk about a return on investment of “marketing” money – something like a few hundred million in “donations” returns 100 billion…

    Reply

  301. NYC Doc, TowerTone:

    Excuse my slow reply:

    NYC Doc said:

    “To the person that wrote the below quote: You are absolutely out of your mind. Thank you for your visit to fantasy island. Maybe you should ask the doctors what they think… btw, how many liver transplants are they doing in Cuba?”

    in response to my statement:

    “In the case of health care, there is a severe quality problem in the U.S. due to HMO’s denying service – ORDERING the doctor to provide poor quality. Universal coverage eliminates that. It also eliminates the tremendous cost of chasing down payments/getting approvals from HMOs and chasing uninsured people for payment.

    As regards quality of approved services, the lawyers would simply switch from suing HMOs to suing doctors, when necessary. I would expect a lot of them would need to find new target category, however.

    Let me be clear: by switching to a universal, single payer system, the U.S. health care system would save enough to give everybody universal coverage, eliminate pre-existing condition based denial of care and other denial dirty tricks AND save roughly 40%.”

    ——————————————————-

    Who said anything about Cuba? Or liver transplants? The context is other major industrialized countries (Cuba isn’t one, by the way), and overall outcomes vs. the U.S.

    Lets be very clear and fact based here (i.e. no fantasies):

    http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/articles/060907/report.pdf

    analyses health care costs and outcomes. First costs:

    – the U.S. pays $4,178 per capita (per person) on health care

    – the median in the OECD (major industrialized countries, basically), is $1,783

    Note that $4,178 is 134% MORE than the median $1,783 – bringing costs down to the median is a 57% saving – considerably more than the cautious 40% from above… And why not do better than the median, since 50% of other OECD countries do?

    (figures are from 1998, things are more expensive now)

    now outcomes:

    – the U.S. is 26th among industrialized countries for infant mortality

    – the U.S. is 24th on life expectancy (after adjustments for disabilities).

    Let me summarize: the U.S. pays the most but has poor results when it comes to health care.

    Sounds to me like the system is severely broken.

    NYC Doc: agree?

    This isn’t a doctor thing – there are obviously excellent doctors and excellent hospitals in the U.S. doing excellent work, but an availability thing – getting health care when you’re sick.

    Obviously, somebody with no or limited insurance isn’t going to go to the doctor unless they have money, which they probably don’t, or they would have had insurance.

    Sure, the healthy, fresh out of school and moved out of the house often don’t have insurance until they get a decent job and are taking a gamble – we’re not talking about these people, since they’re healthy and likely not using much in terms of health care at least until they start raising a family.

    Now if they get in a car accident, they might not be so happy about things, as regards health insurance…. Like I said, a gamble.

    U.S. hospital emergency care is required provided by law but surely nobody is seriously suggesting that one’s doctor should be the hospital emergency room’s, and that you should wait until an illness becomes an emergency before you get treatment.

    Nobody is suggesting this, right?

    And the cost of emergency care at the hospital for the uninsured/underinsured is added to everybody else’s bill – its not like this cost disappears. Plus, this is only emergency coverage – once you’re no longer an emergency, you’re turfed out. See

    http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=local&id=5426486

    For some of the more infamous examples of getting turfed out – a taxi ride to skid row. Now, personally, I don’t fully fault the hospital nor the health care folks for this – the hospital isn’t tasked with providing non emergency care, so they shouldn’t do it, and the hospital staff need to support this. But there is clearly a health care services issue here, for non emergency care. And, ahem, a patient transfer issue.

    What about things like heart disease (the #1 killer in the U.S.)? Until/unless you get a heart attack or something else of emergency severity, you’re not treated at the hospital if you don’t have health insurance.

    And cancer (the #2 killer)? And diabetes?

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  302. NYC Doc:

    1. You asked who would save 40%.

    Under the single payer model, the government would pay for health care, funded, by taxes. This means that:

    – basically HMOs, PPOs would disappear

    – personally paid health insurance would disappear

    – personally paid health care would disappear excluding non medically necessary health care like cosmetic surgery (excluding cosmetic surgery for accident, burn, surgery reconstruction etc.)

    – employer paid health care would disappear.

    So, if you, personally, pay as you go, or pay personally for health insurance you will save, on average 40%.

    Now if your employer pays 100% medical coverage, they will save 40%, on average.

    If employers are not paying the new system’s 60% cost (and they shouldn’t, since they don’t in other countries, generally, and payroll taxes like this hurt employment) they should be required to give everybody a raise so that people experience a net 40% savings – their increased taxes offset by a raise + care for all, as decided by the doctor. It would seem that the savings should be given to the former provider employee/employer, in the proportions each paid.

    2. You are concerned about doctors getting paid peanuts and leaving the country. I have said nothing about doctor’s salaries, nor health care workers salaries, so why do you think they would be cut? That would seem to be a very bad and needless idea.

    Since few people pay cash for health care, the change is one intermediary (HMO, PPO) for another, the government, but with a commitment to cover everybody for medically necessary procedures (excluding mega-expensive drugs etc.). You could think of it as medicare except for everybody, and paying an amalgamated rate, so that doctor payouts are unchanged.

    In fact, since money will no longer be eaten by HMOs and drug companies, doctors will receive MORE money since services will be expanded. And, obviously, more of a focus on prevention will take place, particularly for the formerly uninsured, underinsured.

    You say doctors will leave – why since they’re getting paid more? Where would they go anyway – do you know of a country that pays doctors more? I believe the U.S. pays doctors more than other countries.

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  303. The FDA and drug companies are massivley corrupt. Insurance companies are too. We all know that. Is nationalizing the health care system the best answer? I think not. You will get second rate doctors treating you. Who wants that? Maybe the very poor. I’m not sure what the best solution is. Besides health care though what are your thoughts on that former terrorist in London in that Daily Mirror article?? I haven’t seen one lib comment on that or their solution to terrorism. The libs seem completely ready to surrender to terrorism and Iran. Not good.

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  307. And there is lots of very good news in the US economy that does not get reported.

    Is that like all the “good news” in Iraq that doesn’t get reported?

    Here’s a clue, you rightist blowhards: while the Titanic was sinking, nobody on the ship used the telegraph to report that the band sounded great.

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  308. I haven’t seen one lib comment on that or their solution to terrorism.

    Then you are a liar, or more probably, the run-of-the-mill horribly misinformed Fox viewer. Are you pretending that the current administration *has* a solution to terrorism?

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  310. You obviously didn’t read the Daily Mirror artical shadow freak. The only way to confront these barbarians is to take them out on their own turf and stop letting them into the US. The dems have raised the white flag and are ready to convert to islam.

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  312. The Republicans never seem to get their facts straight – the article from the former Jihadist was in the Daily Mail, not the Daily Mirror (the Daily Mirror has been against the war in Iraq from way before hostilities even started) and the Daily Mail (as I previously mentioned) is a paper that sympathised with the Nazis and considers its mission to make people frightened and angry.

    As for a plan to deal with terrorism; the leadership of the Republican Party (i.e. this administration) don’t even listen to advice coming from people on their own side – the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group which included James Baker have been comprehensively ignored and many of the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission have been similarly sidelined.

    Many Democrats – including those of us who post here – have promoted the usage of a more intelligence-based approach (that’s genuine intelligence, as opposed to the “poisoned fruit” that comes from using torture which is normally the tool of barbaric despots rather than fully-functioning democracies) which recognises that terrorism is a tactic as opposed to a tangible target which can be fought using armored brigades and daisy-cutters. But – in response – all that the Faux Noise viewers can come up with is that we’re Muslim-loving commies.

    Quite frankly talking to you people is pointless and increasingly beneath our dignity: your party’s leadership has subborned the Constitution (including the creation of new imaginary branches of the Government) and hides behind a specious concept of Executive Privilege to prevent any oversight or examination even when it is clear – in cases such as the RNC’s private e-mail system being used as a back-channel for communications that the administration would prefer to not to be preserved – that it is behaving in a manner which is skirts the borders of legality.

    This administration is now almost completely filled by failed Americans who are contemptuous of the conventions which made this country successful and it has prosecuted an illegal war – for regime change as John Bolton admitted today – which has done more harm than good. I think “27%” Republicans really ought to consider themselves lucky that we even deign to interact with supporters of an administration who, if we were in 1930s Chicago, would be under indictment for racketeering, corruption and embezzlement for starters.

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  313. @spartacus:

    sounds like the rantings of a defeated, jealous, surrender. You libs are ready to convert to radical islam. you should try your special tender handling of these people up close and personal. head over there and give it a shot. see what happens. the majority of the US media has been hijacked by you freaks. Fox is fair and balanced. It looks to you commies like it isn’t because you’re so far gone to the left you don’t know what covering both sides means. For you 9/11 conspiracy freaks check this out: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/1227842.html

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  314. Spartacus,

    That is the problem with people like you. You need to engage the other side of the argument (Republicans) like you seem so willing to do with the terrorists that you love so much. You know the terrorists that kill woman and children, and are really so far and beyond your worst nightmare of what a Republican is that it’s just unexplainable why you libs always side with terrorists. We Republicans just laugh at you poor confused souls.

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  315. So your response to my statement that whatever I said would be answered with “muslim-loving commie” is to call me a muslim-loving commie. Thanks for adhering to the script and not bothering to read the substance of the post.

    John Bolton said yesterday that the primary motivation for the Iraq War was regime change (“I think hard power worked very well in Iraq. It got rid of Saddam Hussein which was the principal strategic interest that we had in mind. [Newsnight, BBC2, 07/20/07 @ 20:45, available at http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsnight until 22:00BST]). Not the war on terror, nor WMD – just regime change.

    So for all the scare-mongering about Iraqi nukes – from a country that was using golfball typewriters because they didn’t have any personal computers – and links to Al Quaeda, the truth is that the US Government and the Coalition of the Gullible entered into a trillion dollar war that has cost over 3000 lives (in US servicemen alone) to change the government of a sovereign state; an act which is specifically against the principles of the United Nations.

    And before anyone says that we entered into that war because Saddam Hussein was killing his own people, the same could be said of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe or the regimes in North Korea or Sudan. So what made Saddam Hussein’s particular brand of despotism so malevolent that it needed to be ended?

    The simplistic response to this is that the war is about oil and – at a simplistic level – that is, to an extent, true. However a more complex truth is that Saddam Hussein sealed his own fate when – in November 2000 – he decided that Iraq’s future oil transactions would be executed in Euros as opposed to US dollars.

    The collapse of the petro-dollar is a potential nightmare for the US economy and – by implication – US politicians; the notion of the dollar as a “solid” reserve currency is predicated on its usage as the de facto means of paying for oil and the US Federal Reserve doesn’t have enough gold to cover the amount of dollars held by overseas interests. If you want to know more about how the petro-dollar keeps our interest rates low and keeps the whole US economy – including the trading account with China and Japan – working, you should do some research.

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  316. 9/11 is what made Sadam a target. Everyone, not just Bush, thought that Saddam had nukes. He most likely moved whatever he had to Syriah or Iran or it’s still hidden. If not who cares. 50 million muslims have a chance at democracy now which is great in itself. It’s too bad their too stupid to figure this out but hopefully they’ll get it soon.

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  317. Bush, the AEI and PNAC and the rest of the neo-cons were itching to go into Iraq well before 9/11, so please let’s not use that tired excuse.

    Let’s also remember that the White House was literally begging intelligence analysts to tie 9/11 back to Saddam Hussein so that they would have casus belli for their war.

    The evidence for nuclear weapons was concocted between the CIA and other intelligence services including – bizarrely – the Italians who were a prime co-conspirator in spreading the lie; it was internally generated disinformation pure and simple which is why we eventually got to Plamegate.

    Try not to be a cretin.

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  318. 9/11 is what made Sadam a target.

    Really? Do you remember two little things called “The First Gulf War” and the “Afghanistan War” against the Taliban?

    Everyone, not just Bush, thought that Saddam had nukes.

    Bull Fvcking Sh!t. The world knew there were no nukes because ten years of inspectors sitting on top of Saddam’s regime knew there were no nukes. You can’t pretend that Iraq was a case of mistaken intelligence when every bit of intelligence the Bush Admin claimed to have was cherry picked or fabricated.

    Own up to it America: you elected a puppet and lapped up every lie that BushCo fed you in your irrational post WTC state.

    It’s only now that so many Bush critics come out because they smell blood in the water. Where was freedom of the press and the Constitution when detractors of the rush to war with Iraq were called traitors and idiotic ideas like “Freedom Fries” were actually considered to be rational responses to the counterpoints of allies?

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  319. Actually the whole world did think that Saddam had nukes and other WMDs. They were moved out of the country or are still hidden in Iraq. You know it Shadow boy. Democrats as well as Republicans and the rest of the world knew it too. France wanted to protect their business interests in Iraq that’s why freedom fries came about. And the fact that they are weasels but getting better since their own muslims are attacking them.

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  322. Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote. Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. Liberals created Medicare. Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act. What did Conservatives do? They opposed them on every one of those things… every one! So when you try to hurl that label at my feet, ‘Liberal,’ as if it were something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from, it won’t work… because I will pick up that label and I will wear it as a badge of honor.

    Reply

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