here come old flattop, he come grooving up slowly
he got joo-joo eyeball, he one holy roller
he got hot air down to his knees
got to be a joker he just do what he please

Tammy Sanford-Banks
No, they do not need transgender Medicaid-they need to stop trying to be something they are not, and get a job. Medicaid is for needy people with real health problems, not for the reason that was given for Medicare now paying for sexual reassignment surgery, "they feel uncomfortable." Really??? Are they going to pay for skin lightening for the black that wants to be white? Are they going to start paying for whites to go tanning because they want to be dark? Are they going to pay for facelifts for the old who want to be young? Are they going to pay for breast implants for the small breasted who wants to be large breasted??? NO!!! They should not be paying for any of this. Payment should be made for things like heart disease, cancer, diabetes, accidental injury. Real actual medical problems, not helping people avoid accepting their lot in life and dealing with it. But, they'll get it. They'll have all this needless crap paid for by the government who already can't sustain what they are taking responsibility for, becoming this nanny state. And I must restate, get a fricking job and pay for your own needless "medical" crap.

ReliableInsider
Tammy, you can't deny basic healthcare to someone just because they're poor. 

Tammy Sanford-Banks
Gender confusion is not basic healthcare. They need mental healthcare. Medicaid is for basic healthcare of the poor, not to perpetuate freakdom.

ReliableInsider
The human population is diverse.  Some people are born with XY chromosomes and female bodies.  That's called Androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS).  These biological descriptions are not randomly chosen by people because they are crazy.  They're just the way these people are, from birth. 

Transgender girls often realize that they are girls starting when they are four or five years old.  It's not something the parent grooms the child into.  It's something the child informs the parent about.  

We have to allow people to be what they really are and trans women really are women.  And trans men really are men. 

Tammy Sanford-Banks
OMFG, please. Are you serious right now? Yes, obviously there are true medical situations where there are genetic defects. This all falls in line with the whole LGBT crap. Being a "man" or a "woman" here in America is one way of doing it. Let's look at gender in say, African tribe, where wearing a dress and make up isn't what makes someone a woman. If you have a man who THINKS he's really a woman, besides wearing a dress and make-up, what would be different in their day??? Nothing.

deathtokoalas
i don't usually reply to these sort of things, but i need to reply to this.

part of being transgendered means being unable to live properly in the gender role that correlates "naturally" with birth sex. i've transitioned fairly late in life, and need to stress how i was incapable of "being a man" in a social setting. i wasn't able to maintain many friendships with either gender, and found myself stuck to the bottom of the social hierarchy in the few jobs i was able to find.

on the one hand, it obviously doesn't affect the mechanics of the job, and the common-sense conservative will normally stop thinking about it there. what gender i identified as didn't affect whether i was able to pick up a phone and talk into it or not. obviously. however, it did affect how i was able to connect with clients on a face-to-face basis, how i was able to relate to colleagues and how i was able to exist within the workplace's hierarchy.

it's not as simple as "getting a haircut". it's a personality issue. the vast majority of jobs that exist - from waiting tables to flipping burgers to closing business deals - expect a certain level of "manliness" from men that i was not able to provide. as i was not able to provide that, i was routinely passed over for other candidates that were able to do so. nor, of course, was i able to compete for traditionally female gender roles, as much of it is appearance based and i was born with the wrong set of hormones.

whatever you want to derive the mismatch from, you have to understand that it is real. i was not able to fulfill a male gender role because i do not think, act or behave in a masculine fashion; i was not able to fulfill a female gender role because i did not have the physical attributes required to do so. without being able to find a role to fill, finding a job is very difficult.

if we want to be really strictly logical, that means i actually had two types of treatment available. i could either undergo psychological treatment to modify my personality so it was more traditionally masculine, or i could undergo hormone therapy to modify my appearance so that it was more traditionally feminine. i don't see any reason to think that the psychological treatment would be more effective or cost less money; to the contrary, studies have shown pretty strenuously that you can't really change somebody's personality. you can, on the other hand, change somebody's physical appearance.

it follows that, for me, and countless others, the hormone therapy is necessary to remove the obstacles that are preventing me from finding employment, because i was never going to find a stable job in a male role.

deathtokoalas
the comments here seem to suggest that it's a common view in america that one is not entitled to water unless they are a good slave. bad slaves are best left to dehydrate and die, as they are not producing anything for their masters.

you white racist dipshits are a bunch of fucking niggers.

John Galt
Just pay your bills and the water gets turned on.  Do you somehow feel that you can demand the labor of others without paying for that labor?

deathtokoalas
what does an automated system of water distribution have to do with labour?

and why do you think that automated system has the right to charge a price, or generate a profit?

the real issue is parasitic investors converting humans into profit generating machines, and denying them the necessities of existence if they don't contribute to that extractive process.

so, why do you think that these parasitic investors ought to have the right to force independent human beings into non-consensual labour (which is difficult to even find) in exchange for the things they need to survive?

there's a very simple fix: common ownership. if the people having their water shut off owned the system, nobody would be able to deny them of what they owned, and they would maintain access to what they are entitled to.

the crime here is in private ownership of goods that nobody should have the right to own, or be able to coerce people into forced labour in order to gain access to.

until we collectively pull our heads out of our asses and work towards collectivizing the various ways we produce things, we will continue to live under the slavery of market capitalism that forces us to work or die.

the reality is that the vast majority of employed people do nothing of any substantial value to society, and most of them are going to lose their jobs in their near future to automation.

but, we should look forward to this as a step forward in human progress and seize the opportunity that is finally available to us to truly be free.

but, we have to change how we think about labour, first.

and, john galt is not helping us do that. john galt is keeping us locked in a system that has failed us as workers, artists and inventors - while benefiting a select group of people, most of whom have never done an honest day of hard work in their whole lives.

crowbird213
Never worked, never will. What does your fantasy system do about population explosion by the dumbest among us? Keep feeding them? If the whole world naught into your fantasy, what effect would that have on your lifestyle. As the dumbest continue to over populate, what continued effect would that have on your lifestyle? Are you prepared to meet at the lowest common denominator? Before answering that last one, I want you to get an apartment where all those lovely poor live. Then get back to me.

deathtokoalas
i actually live just about as close to detroit as a canadian possibly could. it's a five minute walk to the tunnel under the detroit river....

i've only been over once, and it was to get my border clearance, which should (finally) show up in the mail this week. and i can state that windsor is not as bad as detroit, but that it does have all of the same underlying economic problems stemming from massive job losses due to massive automation. i live in what is one of the poorest parts of windsor, which is no doubt roughly comparable to some areas in detroit. and, i moved here specifically to exist in the area that has the highest potential to move beyond capitalism in the near future.

starting in august, i will be over to detroit fairly regularly.

the basis of the plotline underlying the film idiocracy is not scientifically valid: there's no correlation between intelligence and genetics. brilliant people will produce dumb children, and dumb people will produce brilliant children. it has more to do with the environment that the children are raised in.

i would consider both of my parents to be stupid people - especially my father, who was a flat out imbecile. but, i was raised with a focus on learning that i've kept up with and have consistently scored in the highest percentiles, while both of my parents would consistently score in the lowest. i'm not a statistical anomaly. you just can't draw those connections, it's a myth.

it's a standard anarchist hope that one of the effects of mass automation and collective ownership of production would be greater community involvement in educating kids (as well as a greater focus on art and education, in general). that kind of freedom from repetitive, dull employment is going to allow parents and other adults to spend more time with their children. to most of us anarchists, this focus on art and education is the entire purpose and value of collectivizing production and resources.

further, the solution to overpopulation issues lies in increasing access to abortion and contraceptives and tearing down religious taboos against their use. it doesn't have anything to do with who owns the resources, it has to do with ensuring that people have access to the tools they need to avoid pregnancies.

intelligence is largely a function of brain plasticity. genetics are certainly passed down, but intelligence is not something that is genetic. there was thinking along those lines in the previous century, but if you move beyond the popular press and popular media and into real journals, you'll see that brain plasticity is now understood as the dominant factor, which places environment as the sole consideration.

this is actually a really important thing to understand in constructing the nature of what human beings actually are. you have to begin thinking of your brain as a ball of plasma that is constructed not by a planned genetic code but by the sum of it's reactions to it's experiences. it's consequently not the same organ that you had when you were born, and it consequently will be an entirely different organ by the time you die. genes code for quantifiable traits, like eye colour and physical sex. despite what the popular press would have you believe, genes don't code for things that arise in our minds like intelligence, sexual orientation or moral value systems.

just as an aside...

the reason people push this "dna is a plan for our lives" hogwash is that it aligns well with the christian idea of "god's plan". it's the genetic equivalent of cavemen hanging out with dinosaurs. the difference is that it cuts a little deeper, and even respectable scientists consequently have difficulty separating the ideas. but the media is relentless in ways that no scientist ever would be because it's seen as bridging a divide.

the reality is that there's absolutely no evidence that there are genes that code for behaviour, cognition, orientation or anything else outside of the basic bio-chemical functioning of our bodies, and anybody that suggests that genes do code for these sorts of things is pushing pseudo-science.

it's chemistry, it's not the magic wand of god.

QuartuvLarry
Collectivism: from the same assholes who brought us the Soviet Union

deathtokoalas
actually, we're the assholes that loudly denounced marx when he was still alive, split the socialist international in half because we thought he was a homicidal lunatic, did everything we could to prevent the russian revolution and then died in several theatres (spain, ukraine, germany amongst others) trying to fight them off when they stamped us out with force.

this report is just bluntly crazy talk. completely disconnected from reality.

seems like a controlled "leak". but, this is smart strategy from the russians.

finally.

"to complete this transition"

kerry knows exactly what's going on. he's in absolute control of the crazies, and he's offering a peaceful transition if the iraqis choose it. otherwise, he'll unleash them on the city.

it's the same kind of tactics that genghis khan used to use.

in truth, they're not seriously planning any kind of military operation against isis. they've been pushing for maliki to get out. it's almost a threat to the iraqi government, but there's not anything the iraqi government can really do about it.

i'm not sure how this media narrative came up. that's a job for a detective of some sort. maybe, some media outlets just jumped to the conclusion, without having a solid understanding of who is funding isis. whatever it is, the state department seems to be running with it.

but, taking it a step back, the idea of providing air support for these groups in syria served exceedingly unpopular, with media images of genocide floating around and headlines asking why the fuck we're supporting al qaeda, all of a sudden. they can't stand up and say they're supporting isis.

so, instead, they say they're sending a few hundred "military planners" to iraq, and talk tough about not taking options off the table. but, it's a smokescreen....

the american goal is to take maliki out because he's too close to iran. the saudis are organizing it, but we're in agreement with the objective.

well, they should have thought about this before they invaded the falklands, eh?

they should seize it from the pope.

i don't think we can talk about hayek being wrong, because his predictions rely on the assumptions of ever increasing state ownership, and the new right stepped in right after he was done rambling and took steps to reduce state ownership, under fears of that serfdom developing (or, more realistically, just using it as an excuse to increase their own power).

when i have this argument, i don't tend to try and convince people that hayek was wrong, i try to point out that my opponents sound like they're stuck in 1973. it's ironic that the right-libertarians tend not to acknowledge that everything they want to see happen has been being put in motion, slowly, by the crony capitalists they're all after. then, when the result is more and more crony capitalism, they call for greater and greater privatization...

so, all you can do is look at the reality and say "well, we've been doing what you want for forty years and the results are exactly what you were trying to prevent. don't you think it's time to try something else, now?".

it creates a sort of irony. we are on the road to serfdom. by eliminating governance as anything but an organization that collects taxes and gives it to military, police and banks, we're recreating a two-class debt-based society that consists primarily of landowners and serfs. rather than push for universal education, we have student loans. rather than keep wages up at levels of inflation, we have a society of people with mortgages.

i'm not sure how hayek would correct the policies of the new right to be more in line with what he was saying.

yeah. that makes it clear who is really running the operation.

again: sneaky russian propaganda. i guess they realize they're not going to convince anybody pushing "conspiracy theories", so they spin the situation to make it look like the americans are incompetent.

in actuality, the americans are refusing to support the maliki government because they want it to be removed by isis. the only uncertainty is the level of co-ordination, but it seems to be rather high.

say what you will about where the republican base stands, but this proves that marketing is meaningless in the face of an educated populace and that those that are focusing on keeping money out of politics are not operating on the principles that were supposed to keep this machine running. they should, instead, be focusing on educating voters.

lol.

yeah, that's exactly what the people that own al jazeera want you to think.

actual funding source = people that own al jazeera.

it's going to be propaganda one way or the other. it's not up to the state to restrict it's propaganda, it's up to parents (and the children themselves) to ensure they get a broader-based education of events.

i don't often "laugh out loud", but finkelstein has a particularly effective style of observational comedy.

i get his argument, but i'm not sure the israelis or americans really want this to end. the israelis have been clear for decades that they're not going to allow a two-state solution. the uncomfortable corollary of this is the question of what exactly they plan on doing with the palestinians is, a question in which nobody wants to exist within the reality where it becomes necessary, and people consequently don't bring themselves to ask. surely, some sort of return will be allowed, or some kind of two-state understanding will be come to! but, neither of these things are going to happen, and the question is consequently pertinent, as difficult as it is.

and i think that's what the economy part of this is about. kerry is trying to set up an apartheid state, and perhaps this is because he knows it is the best thing the palestinians can hope for, and it seems to be being resisted by the israelis. this is implying more drastic answers to the question.

the best case scenario that the israelis will allow appears to be resettlement somewhere outside israel. they seem to want gaza to join egypt, to egypt's continuing refusal. they seem to want to expel the population of the west bank to jordan. integration isn't a serious option.

so, if kerry's plan relies on convincing the israelis to abandon this type of cleansing operation and integrate the palestinians as low wage workers, i don't foresee it being successful.

however, that doesn't make finkelstein's underlying logic go away. the west bank is almost full, and when it becomes full something is going to have to happen to all of these people that are never going home.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7R8GyplfV8

but, aboriginal title is not sovereign land rights. it's just a special type of fief. and, the ruling states that the crown maintains veto over the process, in the end.

they've been doing this for years. it's all a smokescreen. and it's actually directed more at making white settlers feel good about themselves than it is towards any real aboriginal land rights.

of course, some aboriginal activists will want to spin it as positively as they can, under the misguided view that if they push hard enough then the courts will eventually give in. but, that's exactly what the system wants them to do.

just to clarify.

the way this will work now is like this:

1) the developer will seek consent. if granted, it will be recorded forever. this helps developers regarding ambiguities - it constructs a real contract out of the process.

2) if not granted, the province will declare that it's in the public interest and attack the first nations groups for not behaving in the public interest.

the difference is consequently merely that they're forcing the natives to sign contracts, to clarify the process.

so, stephen, is that a four-year plan or a five-year plan?

five-year plan, this time.