JayB

I'm all for conducting an experiment in which we socialize medicine, on the condition that we first socialize legal services using the same mechanisms proposed for health care, and see how that goes. As far as your appointment is concerned, what imperative do you think was driving your doctor's decision to order the battery of expensive tests to satisfy the "standard of care," if it wasn't her clinical judgment?

i'm in a teacher's union and it isn't anathema to me to see higher pay for jobs that are actually harder to fill - that seems like straight market economics to me - if you wanna reduce my pay so you can pay a math teacher more though that will be pissing me off, as well as insinuating that what i teach (social studies) is less valuable that math/science in the grand scheme of things. Seems like that's what would have to happen eventually if supply and demand ever factored into teacher salaries. Maybe not straight off the bat, but when you are taking the funds out of the same pot - eventually someone with a BA in English is going to top out at a lower comp level, or get a smaller merit increase - and that money will be landing in the hands of the folks with the more valuable (in the strict economic sense) qualifications. Knowing what I do about the respective difficulties associated with securing a degree in the hard sciences, versus securing a degree in the humanities (did both), I think I'd be pissed off if the guy with the degree in English was making the same amount of money that I was. Is there even such a thing as a "weed-out" course in English programs? Seems like taking the money out of administrator pay, or cutting the number of administrator's would be a politically acceptable way to get beyond the "fairness" impasse.... All this "English Major" bashing is starting to piss me off...so of course you know now what I studied! There were PLENTY of "weed-out" courses...ever taken a course in Post-Modern American Poetry? A little Ezra Pound? Read much Thomas Pynchon or DeLillo? Writing critical theory abstracts?! Puh-lease! Though I will grant you that most of those were electives, not required, so I guess one could get an English degree without going taking courses like "Chaos Theory in Literature" like I did. My only point is, please stop bashing the English Majors! Some of them (like me) are really good at math/physics too!! I would agree with your point about administrators however... No bashing intended. However, the reality is that it'll take the average person far more time and effort to get a degree in the hard sciences or engineering than it will for them to get a degree in either the social sciences or the humanities. Funny, the university I attended had four year programs for both liberal arts degrees and science degrees. I was talking about the amount of time the average person would have to dedicate to studying and coursework in order to pass the courses required to obtain their degree. Assessing difficulty by comparing the number of credits required to graduate is kind of like comparing routes to a summit by the number of miles from a trailhead. Same destination, vastly different paths.

i'm in a teacher's union and it isn't anathema to me to see higher pay for jobs that are actually harder to fill - that seems like straight market economics to me - if you wanna reduce my pay so you can pay a math teacher more though that will be pissing me off, as well as insinuating that what i teach (social studies) is less valuable that math/science in the grand scheme of things. Seems like that's what would have to happen eventually if supply and demand ever factored into teacher salaries. Maybe not straight off the bat, but when you are taking the funds out of the same pot - eventually someone with a BA in English is going to top out at a lower comp level, or get a smaller merit increase - and that money will be landing in the hands of the folks with the more valuable (in the strict economic sense) qualifications. Knowing what I do about the respective difficulties associated with securing a degree in the hard sciences, versus securing a degree in the humanities (did both), I think I'd be pissed off if the guy with the degree in English was making the same amount of money that I was. Is there even such a thing as a "weed-out" course in English programs? Seems like taking the money out of administrator pay, or cutting the number of administrator's would be a politically acceptable way to get beyond the "fairness" impasse.... All this "English Major" bashing is starting to piss me off...so of course you know now what I studied! There were PLENTY of "weed-out" courses...ever taken a course in Post-Modern American Poetry? A little Ezra Pound? Read much Thomas Pynchon or DeLillo? Writing critical theory abstracts?! Puh-lease! Though I will grant you that most of those were electives, not required, so I guess one could get an English degree without going taking courses like "Chaos Theory in Literature" like I did. My only point is, please stop bashing the English Majors! Some of them (like me) are really good at math/physics too!! I would agree with your point about administrators however... No bashing intended. However, the reality is that it'll take the average person far more time and effort to get a degree in the hard sciences or engineering than it will for them to get a degree in either the social sciences or the humanities.

i'm in a teacher's union and it isn't anathema to me to see higher pay for jobs that are actually harder to fill - that seems like straight market economics to me - if you wanna reduce my pay so you can pay a math teacher more though that will be pissing me off, as well as insinuating that what i teach (social studies) is less valuable that math/science in the grand scheme of things. Seems like that's what would have to happen eventually if supply and demand ever factored into teacher salaries. Maybe not straight off the bat, but when you are taking the funds out of the same pot - eventually someone with a BA in English is going to top out at a lower comp level, or get a smaller merit increase - and that money will be landing in the hands of the folks with the more valuable (in the strict economic sense) qualifications. Knowing what I do about the respective difficulties associated with securing a degree in the hard sciences, versus securing a degree in the humanities (did both), I think I'd be pissed off if the guy with the degree in English was making the same amount of money that I was. Is there even such a thing as a "weed-out" course in English programs? Seems like taking the money out of administrator pay, or cutting the number of administrator's would be a politically acceptable way to get beyond the "fairness" impasse....

That's what I've heard elsewhere, but hadn't taken the time to verify - although I seem to recall reading an NEA position along those lines. As long as the guy with a BS in physics makes the same amount as the guy with a BA in English, the shortage of qualified teachers in math and the sciences will persist. FWIW I'd wager that on average, teachers of any stripe could match or exceed the salaries they're earning elsewhere much more easily than the average mid-to-upper level administrator could - but that's another story... Kudos to your wife for doing what she does.

I suppose I'm having the opposite problem. Some of the stuff that I bought ten years ago still works so well that I just can't justify replacing it. Then there's the stuff that will never wear out, like ice tools, but I just don't see myself reaching a point where the tools are the limiting factor for me, so buying a new pair just doesn't make sense unless the ones I have break, or they stop making picks that fit them. My wife even started *prompting* me to consider replacing a couple of pieces of gear this year... In my case, gearing up for another major hobby has been the key motivator for making do with the stuff that I have, so that I can spend the money on new gear that's not yet in the inventory. When it comes to big ticket items, I generally try to buy the best stuff that I can afford, and use them 10 years or until they break. Seems to work out pretty well most of the time - even better when I sail past the 10 year boundary and the stuff still does the job.

How would your peers in the teacher's union feel about paying math/chem/physics teachers more than the folks teaching humanities or PE?

Awesome TR. You've definitely got a knack for the Largo-esque prose and that, along with the stellar photos, makes for a great contribution to the site.

This thread has inspired me to turn over a new leaf as well. I think I'll start posting in political threads, and making abundant use of long, compound sentences...

Just a thought - but I think that providing the medical equivalent of "food stamps" - e.g. vouchers for the payment of medical expenses at licensed facilities would offer a bridge to cross the public-private divide. I don't have time to drone on about the incentive structure for too long - but essentially it would combine a debit card (redeemable only at licensed facilities) for direct payment (no bureaucracy, public or private standing between physicians providing routine care and payment for services rendered), with a gap of variable "width" between the total annual payout from the card and a public catastrophic plan. I'd also add in an incentive to save by transferring a percentage of the un-redeemed balance into health savings accounts that could be used to fund the gap between the point where the payouts from the card end and the coverage from the catastrophic policy begins. The evidence so far suggests that physicians are quite willing to cut their billing rate considerable for timely, up-front payment, since when it's all said and done - they come out ahead after eliminating the expenses associated with submitting claims for reimbursement from insurance companies. I'd only advocate policies like this for a subset of the US population, but I think it would also work in a medical economy like Canada's.

Now back to the subject at hand. "Arabs, Muslims battle US, Europeans over free speech at UN GENEVA, April 1: Arab and Muslim countries defended on Tuesday a resolution they pushed through at the United Nations to have the body’s expert on free speech to report on individuals and news media for negative comments on Islam. An amendment passed by the UN Human Rights Council on Friday directed the body’s expert on freedom of expression to report on people who abuse their free speech rights by espousing racial and religious discrimination. Ambeyi Ligabo, a legal expert from Kenya, currently holds the post. The measure, proposed by Egypt and Pakistan, was passed 32-0 with the support of Islamic, Arab and African nations on Friday. European nations and some other countries abstained.The United States, Canada and European countries criticised the role reversal for Kenyan legal expert Ambeyi Ligabo, who has reported to the global body on measures by dictatorships and repressive governments to restrict free speech. The US and other Western nations claimed that the Muslim-backed resolution at the UN Human Rights Council could curtail freedom of expression and help dictatorial regimes block dissenting views. “The resolution adopted attempts to legitimise the criminalization of expression,” said Warren W. Tichenor, the US ambassador to the UN in Geneva. “The resolution seeks to impose restrictions on individuals rather than to emphasize the duty and responsibility of governments to guarantee, uphold, promote and protect human rights,” Tichenor told the 47-nation body. The United States is not a member of the council but has the right to speak as an observer. Pakistan’s ambassador, Masood Khan, speaking on behalf of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, defended the resolution and denied that it would limit freedom of speech. “It only tries to make freedom of expression responsible,” Masood said. Egypt’s Ambassador Sameh Shoukry said there was a growing trend to erode human rights law, permitting some of the worst practices that incite racial and religious hatred. The resolution was the latest move initiated by the Arab and Muslim countries dominating the council to protect Islam from religious hatred and defamation. Islamic groups have been demanding limits on free speech ever since a Danish magazine published sketches of holy prophet Muhammad, provoking riots across the Islamic world in 2006. Muslim countries also have cited the recent release of an anti-Islamic Dutch film and the Pope’s controversial comments on the religion in demanding tighter controls on the so-called freedom of expression. The council has no enforcement powers but is supposed to act as a moral conscience. Last week, it adopted a separate resolution urging countries to enact anti-defamation laws specifically to protect Muslims. Slovenia’s ambassador, Andrej Logar, speaking on behalf of the European Union, claimed that Ligabo’s role as an independent expert was shifting from protecting free speech toward limiting it. Terry Cormier, a member of the Canadian delegation, said: “The job of a special rapporteur is not to police the action of individuals.” The New York-based Human Rights Watch condemned the amendment. “It turns someone who is supposed to defend freedom of opinion into a prosecutor whose job is to go after those who abuse this freedom,” Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said." —AP

Don't worry too much though, Bill. The Professor Brothers have got it covered... cCrovnNGdSg Oops. Looks like this video no-likey hotlinkage: Url: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCrovnNGdSg

I realize you like the US is bad strawmen - I wasn't arguing that, pointing out the foolishness of the English Only group that wishes to make English the only language of government communication preventing government from translating forms into other languages and conversing with populace in any other language. I don't think that there's anything wrong with declaring that a single language will be used for all internal communications, but I'd agree that making it illegal for the government to use anything other than English at critical interfaces is unncessary and would be unfair to those who may speak the language well enough to get by - but not well enough to genuinely understand, say, the charges being levied against them in a legal proceeding, etc. The case for accomodating all languages in public school classrooms is far less clear, and I'm inclined to support english-only instruction in most cases. Speaking of strawmen, though, where is this statutory "English Only No Matter What" policy actually in force?

Are you sure they're all out to undermine public healthcare? If there's a problem or a shortcoming with the system, I'm not sure how treating that information like a state secret will enhance the system's capacity to look after the Canadian public's well being. If the public is satisfied with the status quo and think that there's no need for any improvement, then any critical article - no matter whether the author's intention - will fail to resonate with the public and you've got nothing to worry about. If there are people who are dissatisfied, I don't think that an infinity of articles that uncritically praise it will do much to change how they feel.

If that interview has you worried, don't scroll down to the comments section... When do you think that some of these historical babies started to get tossed out with the bathwater?

One wonders why new governments wish to impose English or the language of choice upon a newly acquired region in the land of JayB Have fun arguing that the distribution of languages would have been any different in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc under any conceivable policy regime that they were likely to implement. US government policy would have been equally likely to succeed in establishing Finnish as the predominant language inside the continental us as it would have Spanish or French. After the grief that Jefferson got just for purchasing land from the French, one can only imagine the response if he'd tried to pass a decree forcing the citizenry to "buy" their language as well. The coastal Indians were already able to swear profusely in English when Lewis and Clark made it to the mouth of the Columbia...

I'm amazed at your contradictory condscension. I'll remind Lousiana and Hawaii that they are in breach of the JayB doctrine. Hey - an edit! You were on stronger ground with the California in 1846 thing...

Alaska spoke Russian before 1867...officially. I'm surprised that you left Russian off of the list of contenders that qualified under the "landmass" criterion.

DMX Doesn't Think So...

I don't want to interrupt the back and forth going on here, but I thought that I'd chime in to commend a novel concept that Carl has introduced into the conversation. The innovation in question is the use of "landmass," as in "total landmass occupied by speakers of a given language at a given time irrespective the number of inhabitants speaking the said language, or treaty settlements establishing sovereignity over the said landmass" as the preferred means of selecting an official language. Equating a facility with the English language to a particular set of cultural or racial attributes is not novel, but I think it's at least as well founded as the "landmass" argument noted above.

Seems like there's a pretty big spectrum between doing nothing and empowering the state to enforce a centralized emissions rationing scheme... I think it's possible to envision using liberal means to create a state of affairs where cranking up the heater to 82 degrees in the winter is seen as being as foolish as stoking a chimney with a stack of 20s, or as socially acceptable as taking a dump on your neighbor's lawn. Any thoughts on our pending steps down that road? As of July 1 the BC government will be collecting a carbon tax at various rates on different forms of energy. But they've designed it to be revenue-neutral, so the projected revenues from the carbon tax will be off-set by cuts to personal and corporate income taxes. I think it's an interesting approach. Taken to its extreme, the carbon tax or energy tax could be increased annually and income taxes reduced by an equivalent amount until income taxes are completely eliminated. The economic drag caused by the high energy tax would be offset by the stimulus of eliminating personal and corporate income taxes. I don't know if anyone has studied the net economic impact of taking it all the way to that point. At first glance it intuitively looks like it should be about a wash, but it's possible that such a policy could be positive for the provincial economy. If you view taxation as a deliberate disincentive to engage in certain behaviours, or as a punishment for same, I'd rather be punished for burning gas than for earning a living, particularly if I could minimize the punishment by the simple expedient of not wasting energy. There's a fair bit of opposition to the scheme, particularly in the interior where heating and transportation costs are already higher and the income tax cut likely will not make up for the added energy costs. Snoboy driving around the Kootenays in a big orange Unimog comes to mind. I'm more inclined to approve, in part simply because I think it's an intriguing approach to taxation policy. In theory, it's a good way to go. Of course, my income tax savings will more than offset my increased energy costs, so if it turns out to be a mistake I'll at least pocket a little $$$ before it all gets overturned. At first glance, the only thing I'd toss in would be language that mandates revenue neutrality, which I can see coming under considerable pressure when funds are tight. Other than that, it seems like technologies that make it easy for people to monitor both their energy use, and it's cost, in real time would be useful. Seems like this tax might provide an additional incentive to do that kind of monitoring. I think it's easy enough to do the math when you are filling up your car, but not quite as easy to determine the effects of adjusting the temp on the freezer, running the porch-light, etc. Monitoring each and every appliance might be a bit much, but I've heard of other approaches that have actually been implemented elsewhere. One utility allowed its customers to pre-pay for their power, and provided them with meters that allowed them to follow how much energy they had left. I vaguely recall them pricing power in a way that gave incentives for using power during off-peak hours, etc.

"Are you following the presidential race? Not at all. You’re not? You know there’s a Black guy running, Barack Obama and then there’s Hillary Clinton. His name is Barack?! Barack Obama, yeah. Barack?! Barack. What the fuck is a Barack?! Barack Obama. Where he from, Africa? Yeah, his dad is from Kenya. Barack Obama? Yeah. What the fuck?! That ain’t no fuckin’ name, yo. That ain’t that nigga’s name. You can’t be serious. Barack Obama. Get the fuck outta here. You’re telling me you haven’t heard about him before. I ain’t really paying much attention. I mean, it’s pretty big if a Black… Wow, Barack! The nigga’s name is Barack. Barack? Nigga named Barack Obama. What the fuck, man?! Is he serious? That ain’t his fuckin’ name. Ima tell this nigga when I see him, “Stop that bullshit. Stop that bullshit” [laughs] “That ain’t your fuckin’ name.” Your momma ain’t name you no damn Barack. So you’re not following the race. You can’t vote right? Nope. Is that why you’re not following it? No, because it’s just—it doesn’t matter. They’re gonna do what they’re gonna do. It doesn’t really make a difference. These are the last years. But it would be pretty big if we had a first Black president. That would be huge. I mean, I guess…. What, they gon’ give a dog a bone? There you go. Ooh, we have a Black president now. They should’ve done that shit a long time ago, we wouldn’t be in the fuckin’ position we in now. With world war coming up right now. They done fucked this shit up then give it to the Black people, “Here you take it. Take my mess.” Right, exactly. It’s all a fuckin’ setup. It’s all a setup. All fuckin’ bullshit. All bullshit. I don’t give a fuck about none of that. We could have a female president also, Hillary Clinton. I mean, either way it doesn’t matter. I don’t care. No one person is directly affected by which president, you know, so what does it matter. Yeah, but the country is. I guess. The president is a puppet anyway. The president don’t make no damn decisions. The president…they don’t have that much authority basically? Nah, never. But Bush pretty much… You think Bush is making fuckin’ decisions? He did, yeah, he fucked up the country. He act like he making decisions. He could barely speak! He could barely fuckin’ speak! Can’t be serious. He ain’t making no damn decisions. Well Barack has a good chance of winning so that might be something. Good for him, good for him. http://www.xxlmag.com/online/?p=20332

"The Federal Reserve is posting maps to illustrate subprime loan conditions across the U.S. The Fed on Tuesday announced the maps will be maintained by its district bank in New York. Monthly updates are planned. The maps will display regional variation in the condition of securitized, owner-occupied subprime and alt-A mortgage loans. The maps will show information for each state and most counties and zip codes. The information includes loans per 1,000 housing units, loans in foreclosure per 1,000 housing units, loans real estate owned per 1,000 housing units, share of loans that are adjustable rate mortgages, share of loans for which payments are current, share of loans that are 90-plus days delinquent, share of loans in foreclosure, median combined loan-to-value ratio at origination, share of loans with low credit score and high LTV at origination, share of loans with low- or no documentation, share of ARMs with initial reset in the next 12 months, share of loans with a late payment in the past 12 months." http://www.newyorkfed.org/mortgagemaps/

Doesn't sound like CC is entirely alone on this one: Fixing a doctor crisis FROM THE EDITORS | March 6, 2008 | The term crisis is often over-used. But when five million Canadians do not have a family doctor, one-quarter of Canadians can't get same-day access to a physician, and wait lists are held responsible for $14 billion in lost annual economic activity, it qualifies as a crisis par excellence. Our Jan. 14 cover story "The Doctor Crisis" examined in detail the surprising reasons behind the critical doctor shortage in this country, including a greater prevalence of female doctors and the crushing workloads that simply burn out many practitioners. Now Canada's doctors have put their shoulders to this issue as well. The CMA's current ad campaign "More Doctors More Care" (www.moredoctors.ca) argues, among other things, that Canadian schools should be allowed to accept more qualified candidates into medical programs. Solving the doctor shortage by adding more doctors is certainly a start, and the CMA deserves credit for making the suggestion. But the story of how doctors came to be in such short supply in the first place is worth a closer look. In 1991 a report by health care academics Greg Stoddart and Morris Barer, commissioned by federal and provincial governments and later serialized in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, examined ways to control the country's rapidly growing health care budget. The report provided 53 recommendations, among them a 10 per cent cut in medical school enrolments and limits on foreign-educated doctors. Provincial governments quickly latched onto the now-ridiculous idea that fewer doctors would mean lower costs, and ignored the rest of the report. So to solve a non-existent doctor surplus, enrolments were promptly reduced at medical schools across the country. This reduction, plus unforeseen demographic and economic factors, led to the genuine doctor deficit of today. Now, with six years required to produce new doctors, even immediate acceptance of the CMA's proposal will leave many under-serviced Canadians unsatisfied for years. For a quicker response, CMA president Brian Day cogently argues we should accredit some foreign medical schools currently teaching large numbers of Canadian-born students in countries such as Ireland or Australia, in the same manner that certain U.S. schools are accredited. The bigger lesson here, however, is that any centralized plan for controlling our complex health care system will inevitably flounder on unintended consequences and bureaucratic hubris. Fine-tuning the number of medical school graduates up or down is not a permanent solution. Changing the focus of the system to put patients first, is. As it currently stands, the only effective means Canadians have to influence the quality or quantity of their health care is to lobby politicians. Patients need to be permitted a far larger role in their own medical decision-making. There needs to be a greater emphasis on choice, a bigger role for competing private sector delivery, less restrictive public funding models, greater use of technology and, oh yes, more doctors. " http://www.macleans.ca/canada/opinions/article.jsp?content=20080306_34621_34621 Broader Overview Here: http://www.macleans.ca/science/health/article.jsp?content=20080102_122329_6200 What kind of madness has taken hold at MaClean's? Questioning the perfection of the health-care model? Refusing to allow ministers in the CHRC to define what it can publish and generally refusing to be cowed by folks accusing it of printing "hate speech?" This is like watching the cast from "The Golden Girls" ditch the walker, mix it up in a bar-fight, and hold her own...startling stuff.

I am not equating blacks and women. I am commenting on the difference between the accusations of "racist" with "sexist". You seem to be upset that being guilty of one is considered a less grave offense than the other.