An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before but had once failed an entire class.
That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.
The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan". All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A.
After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B.
The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.
As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.
The second test average was a D! No one was happy.
When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.
The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.?
All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.
You realize of course that the story, while interesting, is a fiction? Obama has not been in office long enough for some professor to make a course based on his economic ideas. Besides, Obama isn't a socialist. Furthermore, what university would allow a professor to do such a thing in the USA. While we're at it, what student would accept an F for such a silly idea and not file suit?
Pretty much every single one. Ever heard of grading on a curve. Makes for some of the worst classes I have ever taken. Usually by the laziest professors who teach the least amount of useful information.
Just so we all understand it had nothing to do with Obama.
Yes. Some teachers do it when a test or assignment appears to unfairly reward or penalize a significant portion of the class. However, that has nothing to do with grading everyone in the class the same, regardless what they do. The story is a fiction. It doesn't happen in real life.
I've had instructors who graded on a curve and others who did not. When my work was the best I got higher marks, regardless which system was used. Students who did poor work gor poor grades either way.
Grading on a curve takes more effort than the standard method.
I've never sued anyone in my life but if I had been failed because the rest of my class did poorly, I'd probably have gone to court or at lease filed a complaint with the dean. Then again, my father was in charge of corporate giving for BMY. By the stroke of a pen he arranged for the school's new library and a number of other major grants so the dean just might have been a better choice if I ever needed help. :^)
The actual determination of individual grades takes a little more work but it covers up crappy (lazy) instruction. If I'm not mistaken, that was the point being made by use of the term 'lazy'.
This is something that I've thought about through the years as I experienced the working habits of employees and ..... even longer- ago ..... to co-workers.
There are some very talented people who ..... when pressed .... can realllly shine and perform lots of work or use excellent judgement on installations or service calls ..... or whatever. But .... as you say, it's not common to find someone that will apply themselves consistantly .... even if at an unstellar level.
Once, a long time ago, I was having a conversation with one of my customers .... saying how I was concerned about being able to meet another customers strict requirements. He said .... Jim, I don't think anyone would be harder on you than .... you. It was a very unexpected compliment, but later, I thought about it .... and thought that it was probably true. It's ... again, one of those things that drives some people and not others.
I find things of this sort tend to be more common among owners of small (successful) businesses. Perhaps this is one ( out of others) of the attributes that sets those people apart from the general populace, who do not aspire to owning and operating their own business. (?)
I kind of wonder what the source of these attributes are, also.
That's simply not true, Joe. Medicare is a government run health program. But people eligible for Medicare are not required to use it nor have they been obstructed from choosing other options.
That is a government run health care *option* and it happens to be one which I also believe might be effective.
Don't be too sure about the percentages. The idea is to set up an option that includes -- not excludes.
Currently those who qualify for the program but chose not to participate do not have a penalty tax imposed upon them. And, I'll let you research for yourslf how the government is going to insure these penalties will get paid because you won't believe me if I tell you.
And, frankly, if I were on medicare it better be because I don't HAVE any other options to choose from. That, IMHO is what a safety net is all about... last house on the block and all that.
Medicare/medicaid isn't an "option", it is a safety net - one which I believe currently has holes far too large. I can't currently 'opt' to go on medicare and cancel the coverage my employer offers - and I shouldn't be able to.
Which could more easily be done by expanding the existing medicare/medicaid system to include those unable to get coverage otherwise - either because they aren't employed, their employer doesn't offer it or they have been excluded for a 'pre-existing condition'.
Rather than be an option that includes,not excludes, it should 'exclude' those who have affordable (the definition of 'affordable' can be debated) insurance available but opt not to participate.
RHC: No, that will never happen. Although we are at war in Afganistan, our primary military role in the world is to complement the UN in peacekeeping activities. Our citizenery would never stand for outright invading another country, nor, with a population one tenth of the US, would we ever have the resources to do so. Countries choose what their military will do based on inate societal values.
My comment re the US military was not meant in a derogatory tone. I was just making the point that the US military machine has become so big and so powerful in it's own right that it exercises an undue influence on the foreign policy decisions of the US government. Nor do I ever see a juggernaut like that ever being tempered by restraint (or at least not without a major internal governmental shift in policy....)
Agreed. The problem here is that big insurance companies and some politicians have conned most of the right into believing that there will be government agencies deciding when to kill grandma. For the insurance companies the only issue is profits. Competition from a government run option will force them to reduce prices. They don't want to do that so they concoct ridiculous lies and get unscrupulous, political hacks like Palin to spout their garbage. Because these same people attack the left, their lies are taken as gospel. The saddest thing is that the insurers and the politicians walk on the heads of those who support them.
the chips are down and you are in trouble, you can count on it. At that point, the question becomes academic to those affected. However, there is no question that we do live in a "nanny state" compared to the US. That is how we have chosen to make our society work...(or not, as the case may be...)
Hopefully, Obama will have the fortitude to push real reform through. Perhaps the greatest Senator in US history just died, fighting practically to his last breath to make health care available and affordable to all Americans. It would be a disgrace for the country not to finally do this thing.
contrived situation. Canadians look south and see the carnage in the major cities due to the illegal, criminal use of handguns and have decided that we will not tolerate that kind of situation as a society. At the same time, politicians have deliberately distorted the real truth that ownership by honest citizens is not and never will be a problem, and have used this as a way of manipulating uninformed public opinion in order to pass ridiculously rigid and dangerous anti-gun laws...
We have the same thing here, but not yet as bad on the national level. Personally, I would rather that no one in America owned a handgun. Since that is never going to happen and since criminals will ignore any laws we pass, the next best thing is to properly train all gun owners and to insist that guns be properly secured when not in the direct control of the owners. That's the only kind of "gun control" that I would support (not that anyone in government cares what I, you or anyone else here thinks). :^).
On that score I'd say the US and Canada are about even. Fortunately, at least we finally have adult supervision in Washington.
RHC: Gun control Canadian style is nowhere near the same thing. It's a
RLB: We have the same thing here, but not yet as bad on the national level.
RHC: On that, we may be a few steps ahead. What is actually good about our laws is the basic control over who may or may not own any kind of firearm (legally of course). Background criminal checks and a mandatory safety course are part of the "good". Enabling this sort of thing actually works to our favour in that it decreases the hue and cry for more controls overall, since it can help to limit the number of certain types of casual, needless deaths (kids playing with guns for example), which inevitably leads to public questions about the sheer stupidity of these deaths (which in turn, leads to more demands to tighten up the laws...). Plus it ensures that those who do own firearms don't do so just because they can, and have no real interest in them or training to use them whatsoever.
One of the things I have observed about my US shooting friends is the far too casual way they handle and especially store their guns. I know they have the right to protect themselves within their home (unlike us), but every firearm should be treated at all times with respect due to it's potential for damage. A loaded, unrestrained gun of any kind around the home is a disaster waiting to happen. Legally we in Canada are required to store all firearms within a defined set of safety parameters, which usually means unloaded in a simple and inexpensive gun safe. When I leave the home, I feel much better knowing that a thief would likely never have the opportunity to steal them, if for no other reason than they are locked up in a huge gun safe behind a professionally installed monitored alarm system ( a REAL one, not an ADT / Brinks bullshit system....)
Where you and I might disagree is when you say that you wish all handguns were gone. This kind of thinking based strictly on the type of firearm leads inevitably to stricter, and very unfair gun control. A gun is a gun is a gun! This kind of thinking has lead to the stupidity we have here in abundance in Canada, where the government has a list of all sorts of long and short guns which are "prohibited" based on nothing more than barrel length, calibre, or its "military look". There is absolutely no logic behind this. It is also totally controlled by bureaucrats who have no concern about honest people who own them who suddenly discover they are now worthless on the open market, and unusable one day for all practical purposes.
There is no reason whatsoever that honest people should be denied access to handguns; the issue is ensuring that 1- those who have them are safe with them both in usage and storage and 2- working towards the impossible goal of keeping them out of the hands of the criminal element as much as possible (which is pretty much an impossible dream other than those that reach them through casual theft due to improper storage). The tremendous growth of gun crime in our major cities comes through the black market for smuggled firearms from the US. Can we stop it ?...not likely, but the government of the day knew about this
30 years ago and chose not to do anything about it for fear of offending our Aboriginal people at the Ackwesasne Indian reservation on the US border. Instead they blame the gun itself and it's availability, as if every honest gun owner is a disaster in the making......
However, I have long since given up on the idea that gun laws will be designed keeping in mind the needs of those who use them the most, and also whether the laws proposed will actually achieve what they are designed to do (and not end up as so much "pap for the public" ).There are so many deceitful, lying people who make up the "anti gun crowd" that the only way to deal with them is with a huge political hammer !! In their own way, they are no better than the criminal element they so like to refer to when pontificating about the need for this or that control !! I have only one thing to say to them....may they rot in hell !!!
Meanwhile, I'll just live with what we have and hope it doesn't get any worse.
In my case it doesn't because I realise the impossibility of achieving the
*desired* goal plus the negative results of a failed attempt and therefore would not support efforts to eliminate handguns. It's the same as with pot. It's impossible to eliminate the stuff and criminalization has had none of the desired results. As such, I think they ought to regulate and tax the "industry." At least the government could stop wasting billions of dollars prosecuting and incarcerating people and begin receiving revenue like they did when we made alcohol legal.
With guns the same approach should be considered. It's already illegal for convicted felons to own guns in the US. Add people with mental defects such as politicians and charge a tax on guns and ammo. Use the money to promote gun safety. As to "registration," forget it. Honest people will register and crooks won't so what's the gain?
Well honestly, I'd rather there be no guns at all but people like to hunt and some people actually hunt for food so I'd allow rifles in my utopia (not to be confused with Sarasota). But handguns are the most common choice among thieves it seems. Anyway, it's a moot point since I don't believe it would be useful to outlaw handguns, much less guns in general.
Thinking does not lead to stupid government. Stupid government happens without thought at all. If you don't believe that, just look at the Bush presidency. :^)
Agreed.
We have the same problem, but more of the deceitful, lying people work for gun manufacturers and the NRA.
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