Jihad needs scientists
in [Design]
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From: lucasea on 4 Nov 2006 17:47 "Eeyore" <rabbitsfriendsandrelations(a)hotmail.com> wrote in message news:454C9C11.F26D71E5(a)hotmail.com... > > > jmfbahciv(a)aol.com wrote: > >> Eeyore <rabbitsfriendsandrelations(a)hotmail.com> wrote: >> > >> >Do you guys not have fireplaces any more ? >> >> Only for show. > > I have 3 working ones. Something approaching 50 % of the houses in the US have a fireplace, but they're mostly not very well designed for heat--mostly for appearance. >> Are you saying that it's OK to pollute the air for heating? > > A good stove can be 90% efficient. That's way better than using coal / oil > / gas > generated electricity to heat your house from a pollution perspective. > > You can also burn carbon neutral fuel on your fire such as wood and garden > waste. > There should be more of this, it's very environmentally sound. I agree. I think she's talking about the smell of burning wood. However, she appears not to know that there are many solid fuel (wood, coal) stoves on the market now that very effectively scrub the acrid smoke from the combustion gases. Eric Lucas
From: lucasea on 4 Nov 2006 17:56 "Eeyore" <rabbitsfriendsandrelations(a)hotmail.com> wrote in message news:454CA0F5.78FACC7(a)hotmail.com... > >> For the toothpaste and condiments it was particular brands. > > Such as ? I can't say I fret hugely over my toothpaste brand actually. And > the > choice of condiments here is really quite excellent. I just wish we could get Horlick's here. The US malt powders are all too sweet for my taste. But it sure ain't worth a flight to London to get it.... >> Import bans, taxes, etc. I never understood all of this >> but it seemed to be tied to unions and headwedged thinking. > > " I never understood all of this ". It shows. It's odd--she frequently says things like "I never understood all of this", and yet lectures other people on the very things she doesn't understand. > Import bans.... Hmmmmm... nope can't thinkof any of those either. It's almost like she took a trip to China 20 years ago, and in her insulated world, assumes that the rest of the world outside the US operates just like China does. >> Thatcher was still removing vestiges of >> WWII price and labor controls when she was PM. > > Cite please. This should be interesting. > You're certainly a perplexingly peculiar source of light entertainment. I > never > realised ppl were *quite* so ill-informed. This thread should certainly enlighten you. Eric Lucas
From: lucasea on 4 Nov 2006 18:25 "unsettled" <unsettled(a)nonsense.com> wrote in message news:d1417$454c9f01$4fe7327$8157(a)DIALUPUSA.NET... > >> This means that you don't have access to any improved drugs. >> The patent period, IRRC, in the US is 20 years. With your >> drug plan, you have to use 20-year old medical drug technology. > > Interestingly people like Eeyore also tend to believe that > new drugs are simply riped off older drugs, so all is well > in their little world. He didn't say that, and you know it. Many new drugs are really new, and many are just knock-offs of old drugs. Nice strawman to try to negate everythign he says. > The public, of course. > >>>The appointment with the doctor or consultant is free of course since >>>they're >>>employed by the NHS ( actually these days the local Primary Care Trust ). > >> Just because you don't pay for it does not mean there are no costs >> for that delivery of service. Somebody is paying for suppplies, >> labor, footprint, cleaning, disposing, etc. > > But to a socialist, whatever isn't obviously visible to them > doesn't exist. Must have something to do with Europe's > "brain drain" of recent decades. Let me ask you a question. What do you think is the total tax burden in the UK? How about the US? This includes all income, capital and consumption taxes. Here are the data: UK: 35.7 % (and this is typical for the entire EU, +/- about 5%. There are of course outliers.) US: 31.7 % That's about a 4 % difference. That's a lot less than my employer pays for my health insurance, and I'm young, healthy, and never had any sort of illness worse than a mild cold. Add to that what is spent on health care in the US (because that's de facto included in the UK number)--20 % of the GDP--and the US number is more like 51.7%, compared to 35.7% in the UK. > When you check out UK's total tax structure the inefficiencies > become obvious. Sales tax alone is 17%, they call it VAT. VAT is not the only tax, and if you look at the total tax burden data above, it belies your attempt to make them look ridiculously high. > We, > in the US, would consider their annual taxes on automobiles > outrageous, You really need to visit other places in your very own United States, besides your own living room. Of the six states I've lived in, five have had annual automobile excise taxes, averaging a few hundred dollars per year. And two of those were traditional red states! > But then they tout their "free" national health care. Nobody ever said free. It is, however, a lot less expensive than ours. > Heck, > they're too poor after paying all their taxes to be able > to afford much of anything, and in the end they're paying > more for health care than we do, but it isn't visible to > them because the money trail is through government. Nice try at emotional rhetoric, but the data simply belie what you say. When you add up our taxes and health care coverage, it costs about 15% more than the comparable number in the UK. > Talk about pollution? I smelled coal fires in a residential > district in August 2002. I haven't smelled coal in the US > in residential use since the 1950's. BAH you asked about > pollution and wood fireplaces? They don't have much wood > left in UK, but they do have plenty of coal They aren't > bashful about burning it without pollution controls. Where did you smell it? I occasionally smell coal fires in poor areas of poor towns in poor states. However, all new coal- and wood-burning stoves have pollution controls, and mostly you don't smell anything. Eric Lucas
From: lucasea on 4 Nov 2006 18:35 "Eeyore" <rabbitsfriendsandrelations(a)hotmail.com> wrote in message news:454CA33F.20867B1F(a)hotmail.com... > > Popular restaurants here include Chinese, Indian, Italian, Spanish, Greek, > Turkish, Thai, Japanese, French, Moroccan etc etc ..... There's even > Swedish food > available ( at Ikea ! ) and you can find Swiss cooking !!! of all things > at the > Swiss Cente in London. More 'exotic' eating out ( rather fewer > restaurants ) > include Russian and Hungarian. Mostly the same in any moderate sized city (25,000+) in the US, plus a few odd ones like Ethiopian (my current favorite--like a cross between soul food and Indian). Smaller towns generally only have Chinese, Mexican (no, not Taco Bell), Greek, maybe Japanese, maybe Indian, and maybe Thai. I'll go you one better. Ever had Tibetan food? When I was a postdoc at Indiana Univ. (very small town, ca. 20,000 ex the university students), the Dalai Lama's brother had settled there (for the excellent school of music), and opened a restaurant. It was very nice--about like you'd expect, a cross between Indian and Chinese. Eric Lucas
From: unsettled on 4 Nov 2006 18:40
lucasea(a)sbcglobal.net wrote: > <jmfbahciv(a)aol.com> wrote in message > news:eii3t5$8nc_007(a)s792.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com... > >>In article <454B8F8F.58262328(a)hotmail.com>, >> Eeyore <rabbitsfriendsandrelations(a)hotmail.com> wrote: >> >>> >>>jmfbahciv(a)aol.com wrote: >>> >>> >>>>Eeyore <rabbitsfriendsandrelations(a)hotmail.com> wrote: >>>> >>>>>T Wake wrote: >>>> >>>>>>Do you take this to imply there is a *shortage* of the goods and >> >>services >> >>>>>>in Europe? >>>>> >>>>>I was hoping to discover this too. >>>>> >>>>>Maybe BAH can enlighten us ? >>>> >>>>I don't know about now... >>>> >>>>People would fly over to buy computers, blue jeans, tooth paste, >>>>books, condiments. >>> >>>To the USA ? >> >>Yes. >> >> >> >>>Well..... we do actually have computers here. In fact the Dell brand sells >> >>well >> >>>here too. >>>http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/default.aspx?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&s=dhs >> >>They didn't use to be sold over there. > > > You have a really, really strange view of the world. Computers have been > available in the UK and western Europe since they have here in the US. > > > >>>I do know that there are some 'cuts' of jeans that may only be available >>>in >> >>the >> >>>USA due to perceived national fashion differences but there's no shortage >>>of >>>them over here nor toothpaste, books or condiments for that matter. >> >>For the toothpaste and condiments it was particular brands. For the >>books, friends of ours would buy $500 worth of paperbacks because >>they couldn't get those titles at home. > > > Yeah, and there are a lot of UK titles that I'm sure are difficult to find > here. So what? > > > >>>> There was something else that was very odd >>>>but I can't remember what it was. These items were cheaper, if >>>>available for sale in European stores. Most were not available >>>>and could not be ordered. Buying the stuff while you were in >>>>your country was not allowed but you could go over and buy the >>>>stuff as a tourist. >>> >>>Not allowed ? What do you mean exactly ? >> >>Import bans, taxes, etc. > > > Details, please. You appear to be making this up. > > > >>>>These restrictions may have to be dropped now that there is >>>>online shopping available. >>> >>>There never have been any restrictions on what you can buy since rationing >> >>from >> >>>WW2 ended in the 50s. >> >>It didn't end in the UK. Thatcher was still removing vestiges of >>WWII price and labor controls when she was PM. > > > You might actually want to listen to the citizens of the UK in this > discussion for this data. They know what they're talking about--you appear > not to. Or did you read in one of your books that there was rationing in > the UK more recently than the 50s? Your assumptions again need a huge dose > of actual data. > > > >>>You're a funny old girl you know ! >> >>Once in a great while I'm funny. However, I'm old all the time. > > > That would go a long way to explain your odd worldview, and your inability > to change it by incorporating data that contradict your assumptions. The really nice thing about experience is that eventually you'll become more like BAH than you realize. I'm old enough, and experienced enough, to laugh at you now. |