Jenn Wasdyke wrote:
> "Daniel J. Stern" wrote:
>
>
>>On Wed, 3 Dec 2003, Jerry McG wrote:
>>
>>
>>>>I daresay you don't know what you're talking about. I'm an American living
>>>>here in Canada, and guess what? Canada's healthcare system is *vastly*
>>>>better than the US system in the vast majority of cases. Are there
>>>>exceptions? Surely. There's no such thing as perfection. But the Canadian
>>>>system does a much better job of handling most of the healthcare needs of
>>>>most of the people at a reasonable cost.
>>
>>>I had exposure to both the UKs socialized medicine and Canadian health
>>>care....run away! A Brit friend was visiting our offices in the States and
>>>took a run up to Toronto to see the Company's Canadian operations. While
>>>there she got the unmistakable signs of appendicitis. The Canadians basicaly
>>>forced her onto a plane to get her over the border to the USA, telling her
>>>she wanted NOTHING to do with the Canadian health care system. EMS met her
>>>at the airport, rushed her to the hospital where she had an emergency
>>>appendectomy within minutes of arrival. She then convalesced for four days
>>>"in hospital", as the Brits would say.
>>
>>So your perception of Canadian healthcare is based on the experience of a
>>friend of yours who was warned off the system by some unknown other
>>individuals.
>>
>>Mine is based on getting very suddenly struck down with a large and lodged
>>kidney stone at 4 in the morning while in Toronto. Extremely painful, but
>>not life threatening. I was diagnosed, treated, operated upon and
>>prescribed suitable meds in a fast, efficient, capable, thorough manner.
>>
>>I think my firsthand experience beats your fourth-hand crapola.
>
>
> As opposed to the American health care system where kidney stone patients are
> tossed out on the street and beaten before being put out of their misery..... Yes
> Canada does a pretty good job at emergency care, but you don't see many new
> innotative surgeries, drugs, and techniques coming out of Canada at all.
>


Actually, our research facilities and findings are second to none. A
lot of American companies carry out their research in Canada because of
the great value they get for their buck (not just exchange rate, but
quality of work carried out). Since we don't have too many "Designer
Clinics" you are right, we don't develop needless, high-cost surgical
practises that are funded by the very richest individuals, but our
advancement of transplant technologies, cancer therapies, etc has been
significant (for a country with 1/10th the population of the Excited
States). Admittedly, the government healthcare system will not pay for
un-proven, touchy-feely "treatments" advanced by some shaman from
Mexico! If it is proven in a properly-designed, double-blind study to
be effective, it is normally added to the "covered" list.

Dan

 

Jenn Wasdyke wrote:
> "Daniel J. Stern" wrote:
>
>
>>On Wed, 3 Dec 2003, Jerry McG wrote:
>>
>>
>>>>I daresay you don't know what you're talking about. I'm an American living
>>>>here in Canada, and guess what? Canada's healthcare system is *vastly*
>>>>better than the US system in the vast majority of cases. Are there
>>>>exceptions? Surely. There's no such thing as perfection. But the Canadian
>>>>system does a much better job of handling most of the healthcare needs of
>>>>most of the people at a reasonable cost.
>>
>>>I had exposure to both the UKs socialized medicine and Canadian health
>>>care....run away! A Brit friend was visiting our offices in the States and
>>>took a run up to Toronto to see the Company's Canadian operations. While
>>>there she got the unmistakable signs of appendicitis. The Canadians basicaly
>>>forced her onto a plane to get her over the border to the USA, telling her
>>>she wanted NOTHING to do with the Canadian health care system. EMS met her
>>>at the airport, rushed her to the hospital where she had an emergency
>>>appendectomy within minutes of arrival. She then convalesced for four days
>>>"in hospital", as the Brits would say.
>>
>>So your perception of Canadian healthcare is based on the experience of a
>>friend of yours who was warned off the system by some unknown other
>>individuals.
>>
>>Mine is based on getting very suddenly struck down with a large and lodged
>>kidney stone at 4 in the morning while in Toronto. Extremely painful, but
>>not life threatening. I was diagnosed, treated, operated upon and
>>prescribed suitable meds in a fast, efficient, capable, thorough manner.
>>
>>I think my firsthand experience beats your fourth-hand crapola.
>
>
> As opposed to the American health care system where kidney stone patients are
> tossed out on the street and beaten before being put out of their misery..... Yes
> Canada does a pretty good job at emergency care, but you don't see many new
> innotative surgeries, drugs, and techniques coming out of Canada at all.
>


Actually, our research facilities and findings are second to none. A
lot of American companies carry out their research in Canada because of
the great value they get for their buck (not just exchange rate, but
quality of work carried out). Since we don't have too many "Designer
Clinics" you are right, we don't develop needless, high-cost surgical
practises that are funded by the very richest individuals, but our
advancement of transplant technologies, cancer therapies, etc has been
significant (for a country with 1/10th the population of the Excited
States). Admittedly, the government healthcare system will not pay for
un-proven, touchy-feely "treatments" advanced by some shaman from
Mexico! If it is proven in a properly-designed, double-blind study to
be effective, it is normally added to the "covered" list.

Dan

 

Jenn Wasdyke wrote:
> "Daniel J. Stern" wrote:
>
>
>>On Wed, 3 Dec 2003, Jerry McG wrote:
>>
>>
>>>>I daresay you don't know what you're talking about. I'm an American living
>>>>here in Canada, and guess what? Canada's healthcare system is *vastly*
>>>>better than the US system in the vast majority of cases. Are there
>>>>exceptions? Surely. There's no such thing as perfection. But the Canadian
>>>>system does a much better job of handling most of the healthcare needs of
>>>>most of the people at a reasonable cost.
>>
>>>I had exposure to both the UKs socialized medicine and Canadian health
>>>care....run away! A Brit friend was visiting our offices in the States and
>>>took a run up to Toronto to see the Company's Canadian operations. While
>>>there she got the unmistakable signs of appendicitis. The Canadians basicaly
>>>forced her onto a plane to get her over the border to the USA, telling her
>>>she wanted NOTHING to do with the Canadian health care system. EMS met her
>>>at the airport, rushed her to the hospital where she had an emergency
>>>appendectomy within minutes of arrival. She then convalesced for four days
>>>"in hospital", as the Brits would say.
>>
>>So your perception of Canadian healthcare is based on the experience of a
>>friend of yours who was warned off the system by some unknown other
>>individuals.
>>
>>Mine is based on getting very suddenly struck down with a large and lodged
>>kidney stone at 4 in the morning while in Toronto. Extremely painful, but
>>not life threatening. I was diagnosed, treated, operated upon and
>>prescribed suitable meds in a fast, efficient, capable, thorough manner.
>>
>>I think my firsthand experience beats your fourth-hand crapola.
>
>
> As opposed to the American health care system where kidney stone patients are
> tossed out on the street and beaten before being put out of their misery..... Yes
> Canada does a pretty good job at emergency care, but you don't see many new
> innotative surgeries, drugs, and techniques coming out of Canada at all.
>


Actually, our research facilities and findings are second to none. A
lot of American companies carry out their research in Canada because of
the great value they get for their buck (not just exchange rate, but
quality of work carried out). Since we don't have too many "Designer
Clinics" you are right, we don't develop needless, high-cost surgical
practises that are funded by the very richest individuals, but our
advancement of transplant technologies, cancer therapies, etc has been
significant (for a country with 1/10th the population of the Excited
States). Admittedly, the government healthcare system will not pay for
un-proven, touchy-feely "treatments" advanced by some shaman from
Mexico! If it is proven in a properly-designed, double-blind study to
be effective, it is normally added to the "covered" list.

Dan

 

"Brent P" <tetraethyllead@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:ywqzb.212011$Dw6.768736@attbi_s02...
> In article <iNpzb.2062$WT6.190@twister.socal.rr.com>, David J. Allen
wrote:
>
> > sales. Another example is telecommunications. Nokia has struggled with
> > CDMA technology in the US because of the constant change and forward
> > movement in technology here. Europe would be happy to stay with GSM as
a
> > universal standard while US companies are pushing the technological
> > envelope.
>
> You've picked a wrong example. GSM has been the leadership MA for many
> years. How do I know this? I did mechanical design and development of
> GSM handsets for 6 years. CDMA was always behind the curve on new
features.

Okay, I can't go toe to toe with you on that, but my point was more about
being able to respond to demand. One of the reasons Verizon and Sprint
haven't used Nokia phones is Nokia's foot dragging with respect to CDMA
phones. For Nokia, the world revolves around GSM and they came marching
into the US thinking they could call the shots... after all, they have such
a huge worldwide marketshare and so much of the world uses GSM. But in the
US, there are competing technologies and competing providers and if you want
to maximize your presence you better be able and willing to respond to
demand. There is less of that atmosphere in Europe. It's all one standard.

I think it's similar to the European attitude that accepts that government
can provide healthcare for all. It works at a certain level and people have
decided they can accept the consequences, good and bad, of that kind of
system. People here are different. There are competing models for
healthcare here. For us to hand it over to the government for a single
monolithic model is analogous to us handing over telecommunications to the
government and specifying a single standard. Would it work? Sure. Just
like in Europe. But I think you have to accept that CDMA is pushing the
technology in wireless. I think phone features is another issue. I believe
that Verizon and Sprint have more power to specify phone features in the
CDMA marketplace as providers than the phone manufacturers do. It's less
about GSM or CDMA than it is about resonding to demand pressures. It's
Verizon and Sprint that are specifying phone features, not Nokia. That was
my point about the difference between European and US markets.


> And the reason was simple, european customers were willing to pay for
those
> features. In recent years CDMA has done alot of catchup, TDMA seems to be
> dying out these days with AT&T and cingular heading towards GSM. (for
> instance, motorola's never mass-marketed watch phone is/was GSM)
>
> Now then there is all the politics around a 3G standard, etc etc, but
> there is nothing wrong with GSM nor has it failed to provide growth
> of new handset technology. I cannot think of anything significant and one
> minor item that appeared on CDMA product before it appeared on a GSM
> product. This recent push-to-talk feature that simulates the propritary
> NEXTEL system that verizon wanted is about it.
>
> Come to think of it, alot of the big wiz-bang handset stuff comes on
> phones made in japan to system they have there.... I forget what it's
> called but it is a japan only MA.
>
>

 

"Brent P" <tetraethyllead@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:ywqzb.212011$Dw6.768736@attbi_s02...
> In article <iNpzb.2062$WT6.190@twister.socal.rr.com>, David J. Allen
wrote:
>
> > sales. Another example is telecommunications. Nokia has struggled with
> > CDMA technology in the US because of the constant change and forward
> > movement in technology here. Europe would be happy to stay with GSM as
a
> > universal standard while US companies are pushing the technological
> > envelope.
>
> You've picked a wrong example. GSM has been the leadership MA for many
> years. How do I know this? I did mechanical design and development of
> GSM handsets for 6 years. CDMA was always behind the curve on new
features.

Okay, I can't go toe to toe with you on that, but my point was more about
being able to respond to demand. One of the reasons Verizon and Sprint
haven't used Nokia phones is Nokia's foot dragging with respect to CDMA
phones. For Nokia, the world revolves around GSM and they came marching
into the US thinking they could call the shots... after all, they have such
a huge worldwide marketshare and so much of the world uses GSM. But in the
US, there are competing technologies and competing providers and if you want
to maximize your presence you better be able and willing to respond to
demand. There is less of that atmosphere in Europe. It's all one standard.

I think it's similar to the European attitude that accepts that government
can provide healthcare for all. It works at a certain level and people have
decided they can accept the consequences, good and bad, of that kind of
system. People here are different. There are competing models for
healthcare here. For us to hand it over to the government for a single
monolithic model is analogous to us handing over telecommunications to the
government and specifying a single standard. Would it work? Sure. Just
like in Europe. But I think you have to accept that CDMA is pushing the
technology in wireless. I think phone features is another issue. I believe
that Verizon and Sprint have more power to specify phone features in the
CDMA marketplace as providers than the phone manufacturers do. It's less
about GSM or CDMA than it is about resonding to demand pressures. It's
Verizon and Sprint that are specifying phone features, not Nokia. That was
my point about the difference between European and US markets.


> And the reason was simple, european customers were willing to pay for
those
> features. In recent years CDMA has done alot of catchup, TDMA seems to be
> dying out these days with AT&T and cingular heading towards GSM. (for
> instance, motorola's never mass-marketed watch phone is/was GSM)
>
> Now then there is all the politics around a 3G standard, etc etc, but
> there is nothing wrong with GSM nor has it failed to provide growth
> of new handset technology. I cannot think of anything significant and one
> minor item that appeared on CDMA product before it appeared on a GSM
> product. This recent push-to-talk feature that simulates the propritary
> NEXTEL system that verizon wanted is about it.
>
> Come to think of it, alot of the big wiz-bang handset stuff comes on
> phones made in japan to system they have there.... I forget what it's
> called but it is a japan only MA.
>
>

 

"Brent P" <tetraethyllead@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:ywqzb.212011$Dw6.768736@attbi_s02...
> In article <iNpzb.2062$WT6.190@twister.socal.rr.com>, David J. Allen
wrote:
>
> > sales. Another example is telecommunications. Nokia has struggled with
> > CDMA technology in the US because of the constant change and forward
> > movement in technology here. Europe would be happy to stay with GSM as
a
> > universal standard while US companies are pushing the technological
> > envelope.
>
> You've picked a wrong example. GSM has been the leadership MA for many
> years. How do I know this? I did mechanical design and development of
> GSM handsets for 6 years. CDMA was always behind the curve on new
features.

Okay, I can't go toe to toe with you on that, but my point was more about
being able to respond to demand. One of the reasons Verizon and Sprint
haven't used Nokia phones is Nokia's foot dragging with respect to CDMA
phones. For Nokia, the world revolves around GSM and they came marching
into the US thinking they could call the shots... after all, they have such
a huge worldwide marketshare and so much of the world uses GSM. But in the
US, there are competing technologies and competing providers and if you want
to maximize your presence you better be able and willing to respond to
demand. There is less of that atmosphere in Europe. It's all one standard.

I think it's similar to the European attitude that accepts that government
can provide healthcare for all. It works at a certain level and people have
decided they can accept the consequences, good and bad, of that kind of
system. People here are different. There are competing models for
healthcare here. For us to hand it over to the government for a single
monolithic model is analogous to us handing over telecommunications to the
government and specifying a single standard. Would it work? Sure. Just
like in Europe. But I think you have to accept that CDMA is pushing the
technology in wireless. I think phone features is another issue. I believe
that Verizon and Sprint have more power to specify phone features in the
CDMA marketplace as providers than the phone manufacturers do. It's less
about GSM or CDMA than it is about resonding to demand pressures. It's
Verizon and Sprint that are specifying phone features, not Nokia. That was
my point about the difference between European and US markets.


> And the reason was simple, european customers were willing to pay for
those
> features. In recent years CDMA has done alot of catchup, TDMA seems to be
> dying out these days with AT&T and cingular heading towards GSM. (for
> instance, motorola's never mass-marketed watch phone is/was GSM)
>
> Now then there is all the politics around a 3G standard, etc etc, but
> there is nothing wrong with GSM nor has it failed to provide growth
> of new handset technology. I cannot think of anything significant and one
> minor item that appeared on CDMA product before it appeared on a GSM
> product. This recent push-to-talk feature that simulates the propritary
> NEXTEL system that verizon wanted is about it.
>
> Come to think of it, alot of the big wiz-bang handset stuff comes on
> phones made in japan to system they have there.... I forget what it's
> called but it is a japan only MA.
>
>

 

Lloyd Parker wrote:

> Once marriage was defined in this country as a union between a man and woman
> of the same race too.

Daniel Stern has already made this argument. I can imagine it would be easy to
find laws that tried to prohibit such unions, but I doubt they did it by trying to
define the word marriage as you are suggesting. I know that in NC, a law was
passed specifically validating interracial marriages in order correct the harm
done my an old law that declared such marriages invalid. If a similar law was
passed validating same --- unions and recognizing then as a marriage, then I guess
I'd be satisfied if not delighted. I still don't understand the need to call a
same --- union a marriage. And I am opposed to trying to implement this through
the judiciary by redefining the legal meaning of the word "marriage" as it has
been understood for many years.

Ed

 

Lloyd Parker wrote:

> Once marriage was defined in this country as a union between a man and woman
> of the same race too.

Daniel Stern has already made this argument. I can imagine it would be easy to
find laws that tried to prohibit such unions, but I doubt they did it by trying to
define the word marriage as you are suggesting. I know that in NC, a law was
passed specifically validating interracial marriages in order correct the harm
done my an old law that declared such marriages invalid. If a similar law was
passed validating same --- unions and recognizing then as a marriage, then I guess
I'd be satisfied if not delighted. I still don't understand the need to call a
same --- union a marriage. And I am opposed to trying to implement this through
the judiciary by redefining the legal meaning of the word "marriage" as it has
been understood for many years.

Ed

 

Lloyd Parker wrote:

> Once marriage was defined in this country as a union between a man and woman
> of the same race too.

Daniel Stern has already made this argument. I can imagine it would be easy to
find laws that tried to prohibit such unions, but I doubt they did it by trying to
define the word marriage as you are suggesting. I know that in NC, a law was
passed specifically validating interracial marriages in order correct the harm
done my an old law that declared such marriages invalid. If a similar law was
passed validating same --- unions and recognizing then as a marriage, then I guess
I'd be satisfied if not delighted. I still don't understand the need to call a
same --- union a marriage. And I am opposed to trying to implement this through
the judiciary by redefining the legal meaning of the word "marriage" as it has
been understood for many years.

Ed

 

On Thu, 4 Dec 2003, C. E. White wrote first this:

> I know that in NC, a law was passed specifically validating interracial
> marriages in order correct the harm done my an old law that declared
> such marriages invalid. If a similar law was passed validating same ---
> unions and recognizing then as a marriage, then I guess I'd be satisfied
> if not delighted.

Then this:

> I am opposed to trying to implement this through the judiciary by
> redefining the legal meaning of the word "marriage" as it has been
> understood for many years.

These two statements seem contradictory.

DS