this thread is all about "Publicly-Funded Bullshit"  - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: chefkoch84
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2016, 06:20:22 pm
content: And what could be a better start than:A million meters of SOLAR ROADWAY !!!!http://www.globalconstructionreview.com/trends/france-pa7ve-1000km-ro7ad-so7lar-panel7s/p.s. for our beloved imperial unit nerds:http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1000+km+to+foot

author: AndreasF
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2016, 07:44:32 pm
content: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/dave's-gonna-blow-a-gasket-or-two/https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/they're-back-solar-roadways/

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2016, 07:49:19 pm
content: Where do you start? Obamacare, welfare, student loans, education, research, global warming, subsidies, .....Pretty everything the government funds fall into the bs category, with a few notable exceptions.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2016, 08:01:43 pm
content: The biggest tax funded mistake in the US you neglected to mention, but its the most important.It is our huge military expenditures, more than the entire rest of the world combined, many of which the military itself wants to see end, but cannot because of Senators and Congresspeople who wont let them.Look at this chart for an eye opening look at where yours and my (US) tax money goes..https://www.warresisters.org/sites/default/files/FY2016piechart_color-B.pdf(thumbnail here)Education is a good investment in the future. That is, unless you don't want a good future for all of us.The root cause of many problems here in the US is the money in politics. Also corporate personhood.Corporations are not people and their money should not be 'free speech' - that is a horrible thing.http://reclaimdemocracy.org/corporate-personhood/That was where we here in the US really started off on the wrong track. Now, God help us.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2016, 09:07:29 pm
content: Considering that the main goal of a government is to protect the freedom of its citizens, having a large percentage of the expenditure going to military and police is very reasonable.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2016, 09:27:44 pm
content: In the utopia called left states of ameirca, you would have no military spending, no law enforcement, free marijuana for everyone, free college, free healthcare, free cobdoms, free cellphones, free jobs for everyone, 100 percent redistribution of wealth, income, beauty, handsomeness and achievements, free green energy, free electricity, free pizza, free sneakers, free Yankees tickets, .....Writing this makes me almost want to live there,

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2016, 09:29:14 pm
content: Sorry, I forgot to mention free daycare, and free soda but it must be in a bottle of less than 16oz.

author: retrolefty
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2016, 03:02:54 am
content: I can get political bullshit on numerous sites, must we lower the SNR with politics or religion? Oh well above all I do believe in 'free speech'.

author: Stonent
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2016, 06:43:45 am
content: Left, Center, and Right - Do we not all agree that one of the things that governments are most proficient at is wasting money?Publicly traded companies (at least in the US) are required to provide an accounting of all their money going in and money going out.If I were elected supreme overlord of some nation/state/city I think I'd terrorize my bureaucratic underlings.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2016, 11:53:59 am
content: A big reason people hold onto dollars is the US military.The rights problem is that they are too stupid to know how to use the military as an investment. Gates and Hagel understood that. Macain and Graham are utterly clueless, as usual.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 09, 2016, 11:15:39 am
content: Quote from: zapta on February 01, 2016, 09:07:29 pmFunny that because the more authoritarian governments such as North Korea tend to spend more on defence, than schools, healthcare etc.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 09, 2016, 11:40:35 am
content: "Funny that because the more authoritarian governments such as North Korea tend to spend more on defence, than schools, healthcare etc."If I were you, I would research a little before making that statement.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 09, 2016, 02:15:29 pm
content: Quote from: Hero999 on February 09, 2016, 11:15:39 amYes, it's funny, same tool can be use for good and bad goals, like a solder iron.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2016, 01:50:22 am
content: Of course under the current system its preferable to offer insurance to the healthy such as yourself and dump you when you get sick with sudden huge bills you can't pay.That's the core idea.The problem is when premiums increase, profitable (healthy) people tend to dump insurance while the unprofitable "medical risks" (insurance industry language for people who have some illness) try to hang on to their insurance.Then the rates have to be increased driving still more profitable people away. That is called "adverse selection" leading to what's called a "death spiral" as the profitable customers are shed preferentially to the sick.Obamacare is a big success for the privatization movement and a triumph for insurance and drug companies, and especially the PR/spin industries. Its goal is to hold things over until the trade deals get signed, which will lock the current system in, with the exception of all the changes put in since 1998, they will get dumped.A triumph for the muti-national corporate system.Against huge odds, as you observed, Obamacare keeps the prices of drugs and healthcare up. Despite all odds.Not just in the US. It allows us to export our "successful" system to other countries so they can do the same thing to their people. maybe even China. They wont be able to say no because trade deals force them to allow it.The US's healthcare system has been seen as the global poster child for medical injustice. And indeed it does keep the poor people out.Thanks to Obamacare, an illusion can be preserved that its working and the millions of people who cant afford to go to the doctor or fill prescriotions can be shamed into silence. Its shameful to be poor here.Poof, they are healthy! As far as the records show. Until they die.Meanwhile the US is pushing global trade deals that by means of a ratchet mechanism, gradually shift countries from having public health care and education to increasingly commercialized private health care and educational brands despite their lack of affordability. We're even doing that to India. in exchange, they are counting on access to our markets - basically jobs here to make it affordable for them to trade public education and healthcare for private.Maybe they will open hospitals and engineering colleges here in the US?Something that would have been impossible just a few years ago.Also, Obamacare provides cover, a "reasonable factor other than age" (abbreviated RFOA) - in the case of the over 40 employee "who makes too much", something that can be blamed, for the job losses. What a gift to industry. of course they have to pretend to hate it.

author: HAL-42b
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2016, 02:08:59 am
content: Quote from: cdev on February 10, 2016, 01:50:22 amUnfortunately new social contracts are only signed as a result of a war that destroys the previous status quo.

author: retrolefty
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2016, 02:17:41 am
content: Quote from: HAL-42b on February 10, 2016, 02:08:59 amWhat does social contract mean? Stuff people get for free because they are people?I've always and still feel in the U.S. that our Constitution is our social contract. It states the limits of government powers and leaves all unstated rights for the states and the people.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2016, 02:32:02 am
content: You're right, even water (white gold in Newspeak) is precious, so it should be valued appropriately, don't you think.People have no right to water and other tradeable commodities if they cannot pay.</sarcasm>

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2016, 02:43:46 am
content: >QuoteWhere have you been for the last 20 years?Only as long as they don't conflict with the goals of the agreements!But theWorking Party on Domestic Regulations is standing against state run enterprises and government monopolies like schools, public hospitals, etc, who steal markets from their rightful owners.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2016, 02:44:21 am
content: QuoteThat's not PC at all,QuoteEveryone has the right to live, with some exception.No one is entitled to other people's money, however.

author: HAL-42b
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2016, 02:46:25 am
content: Quote from: retrolefty on February 10, 2016, 02:17:41 amYes the U.S. Constitution was one of the best social contracts ever written. Unfortunately you can't say it is being upheld any more.

author: retrolefty
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2016, 02:59:18 am
content: Quote from: HAL-42b on February 10, 2016, 02:46:25 amSure I can. Our Constitution has the means to be amended and has presently a 9 member SC to rule on Constitutional cases brought before it. Just because someone doesn't agree with some part of the Constitution or on any specific SC decision doesn't mean it isn't being upheld anymore.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2016, 03:00:50 am
content: You and your quaint "right to regulate"

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2016, 03:02:41 am
content: Most of what the US government does by count, and a large part of what the US government does by $ are not things the founding fathers envisioned in the constitution - ie. a large part of the US government is unconstitutional.Both parties are guilty of leading us to where we are today.

author: HackedFridgeMagnet
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2016, 03:20:21 am
content: Quote from: zapta on February 01, 2016, 09:07:29 pmI was just wondering where that statement comes from,Somebody said it?In the USA Constitution?Implicit?I agree that the goals of government are very relevant to this topic, I just don't remember seeing them defined anywhere before.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2016, 03:23:23 am
content: Things have changed an awful lot in the past few decades and Americans remain largely unaware of the changes. We know something has changed but we are vulnerable to people who are trying to spin them a bit too much for it to be healthy. Its a bad situation. Think of it as a global shell game with very fast talkers - They appeal to people who want to think that they are more powerful than they are, instead, we're all being taken to the cleaners.Quote

author: retrolefty
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2016, 03:26:39 am
content: Quote from: dannyf on February 10, 2016, 03:02:41 amI agree with that, the Fathers envisioned strong State(s) government with limited Federal government role. But as far as "a large part of the US government is unconstitutional" anyone can have an opinion but only the SC past, present, and future can rule in fact if something is unconstitutional or not.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2016, 03:35:38 am
content: 'politicians and economists see those ...'I wonder if those politicians and economists would happily practice this kind of taking on their own properties. I'm happy to take their bank accounts, houses, cars, boats, beautiful wives and kids, .....If those guys are happy 50 years after being taken by others, I will consider adopting their theories.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2016, 03:40:11 am
content: There are major conflicts between federalism and the so called global governance. For example, to global governance, sub federal entities in nation states dont really have any standing, at least those protections are between the federal entities and the states to work out. States and countries can do anything they want as long as their domestic regulations dont conflict with the goals of the agreements. The agreements take precedence. International capital is very mobile now, so the argument is it needs stability. It needs to be above politics and unpredictable things like that. So economically important things to the investors are taken off the table. Do politicians become largely symbolic:? Vestigial?Many are arguing its unconstitutional and they are probably right. But its seen as not mattering because its a national document. So, its by virtue of that fact, subordinate the these supranational Agreements to put all those things aside so that this new body of international investors "rights" are created and then protected in special corporations sue nations only courts .

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2016, 03:40:40 am
content: Quote from: blueskull on February 10, 2016, 01:07:28 amYou misunderstand the point of insurance. It's not about paying everyday expenses — indeed, most people could afford to pay routine doctor visits (especially if they had no insurance premiums to pay). But that's not why we insure. We insure so that if catastrophe strikes, you're covered even if the bills far exceed your total income. Otherwise, you'd die because you didn't have a million dollars to cover your three years of cancer treatment, for example.Insurance isn't a credit account for routine stuff. When you buy insurance, what you are doing isselling your riskof financial ruin. You arebuying financial security. (Indeed, that's all insurance is: thetransfer of riskfor money.)The reason for an insurance mandate is that if you live in a society which considers it inhumane to deny treatment to someone just because they don't have enough money (which is most societies), thus requiring taxpayer intervention to save you, it's unfair that some people pay into the system while others don't. So we require that everyone pay in.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2016, 03:44:47 am
content: Coase and its progeny really have changed everything..And in a really bad way.Most Americans basically have vey similar values. People are trying to drive the country apart. But most people want the same things. And are outraged by the same things. (Also, Chinese are more like us than different. To some extent, it seems to me that China is basically the America of Asia. We both can be proud to the point of it being too much, hubris.)Also, Obama is not a liberal, he's a neoliberal.Which is more of a right wing thing than a left.What is neoliberalism? Dannyf, you probably would like neoliberalism. As it wants to privatize everything. But you would be ignorant of one ugly fact about it, its brutal in its effects on nations economies. Its inherently parasitic in that it takes and does not give back, thats 'maximizing the vale in the supply chain' it concentrates wealth which ironically, reduces sustainability - reduces prosperity, which is something entirely different.Suppose you have a successful smal, business. You might not like its effects on your small business. because neoliberalism is poison for domestically bound locally owned businesses. It is strictly BIG business oriented. Big bank oriented.Australia has a neoliberal government now. So does the UK (Cameron) Both are beginning to wise up to what they are doing.For the UK to privatize the NHS would be a huge mistake. Only do that if you enjoy what Blueskull is compaining about. You have no idea.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2016, 03:50:03 am
content: 'If those guys are happy 50 years after being taken by others, I will consider adopting their theories'I think that should be the ultimate test for any policy proposals. If Obama thinks obanacare is good for us, put his family in it as well. If it is good for my family, it must be good for his too.If he is not willing to subject his family to his own policies, why should we? Basic fairness.

author: retrolefty
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2016, 04:00:28 am
content: Quote from: dannyf on February 10, 2016, 03:50:03 amMost people in the U.S. don't join Obamacare, rather the vast majority get their healthcare coverage through their employment or medicare if 65 or over. I think Obamacare covers only like 10-12 million or so, so a small percentage of the 330 million population. Obama is covered as a Federal employee.The U.S. was founded on providing equal opportunities not equal outcomes. People have large variations in talents, intelligence, motivations, and goals. To expect any government to strive for equal outcomes for people is just ignoring the human condition and bound to go down in flames.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2016, 04:19:32 am
content: Quote from: dannyf on Today at 22:50:03'If those guys are happy 50 years after being taken by others, I will consider adopting their theories'I think that should be the ultimate test for any policy proposals. If Obama thinks obamacare is good for us, put his family in it as well. If it is good for my family, it must be good for his too.If he is not willing to subject his family to his own policies, why should we? Basic fairness.You don't get it. You drank the Kool Aid.Obama is wealthy. Wealthy people in the US getmodern care.Like is the norm in Australia, even still.Or Western Europe. Wealthy people buy top quality insuranceat tremendous cost.How much, in New York City "good" PPO insurance for a family can easily cost$6500 a month.And thats a conservative estimate. Thats an old figure. From maybe 2008.And the really wealthy getconcierge medicine, or if they are really really wealthy, and have health issues, they have live in doctors.They - their doctors, may subscribe to a service wheretheybasically have medical personnel available to them, with specially equipped vans "On call" 24-7. They get a mini-hospital and lab in a van.. which can come over at any time its needed..the best that medicine anywhere can offer.The wealthy self insure. They pay by cash or check or credit card, for their medical care. At undiscounted rates.They may sometimes have old style 'fee for service' insurance (if its still available anywhere, I doubt it) even though it costs more than what 75% of all Americans make every year.It pays everything. No gag clauses. No insurance company haggling with the doctor.in short, its basically single payer.All Canadians get care like that, whatever is called for if they need it. They may have to wait a bit for elective surgery. But emergencies get taken care of right away. And no big surprises. there are no bills.Unfortunately 99% of Americans have to deal with the companies who arguably add NOTHING - they add no value and all they insure is that most Americans wait too long to get medical care they need. Which makes it still more expensive. And they try to delay diagnoses of serious illness by (kind of) billing doctors - in a sense, by paying doctors a flat rate per patient - so they are basically paying doctors less per hour when their patients are sick, and less when a patient is diagnosed with an illness.So, among the rich, HMOs are seen as a dumb move for all but the very healthy.There is a paradox. In America, only the wealthy and healthy can afford cheap insurance.Others don't ever get HMO insurance. they wouldn't be caught dead with HMO insurance. They have separate waiting rooms and separate doors. Great care is taken to keep the two groups apart in hospitals. For liability reasons.------Which brings me to the main reason many well to do people would rather pay cash - Its because then they get better care.. it also preserves their privacy and also doctors can be honest with them, if they are sick. I already explained that higher up in the thread, basically HMOS limit the options doctors can discuss with patients to what they want to pay for.And the wealthy certainly dont get Obamacare.Obamacare is an minimal insurance of last resort for poor people.And its designed so they cant really afford to USE it. if somebody who has Obamacare did in fact use it a lot, they likely would come under suspicion for lying on the application. Where did they get the money!?Its a really f**** up non solution. It doesn't solve ANY of the big problems with the healthcare system.(Read about them here) State Health Reform Flatlines -http://www.pnhp.org/states_flatline/State%20Health%20Reform%20Flatlines%20IJHS%20-%202008.pdfPNHP Research: The Case for a National Health Program -http://www.pnhp.org/resources/pnhp-research-the-case-for-a-national-health-programIts trying to lower the 'legal standard of care' to third world levels. Its main goal is to preserve a really disgraceful situation long enough so that these really horrible trade deals can act to literally lock bad policy into place forever by giving corporations property rights to bad policy continuing forever. In other words, when it becomes too much for the country to bear, then we cant get out, instead we have to buy our freedom with a huge bailout. Something like that happened on a smaller scale to the Slovak Republic, and you can read the actual legal case - well, arbitral case, here.http://www.italaw.com/sites/default/files/case-documents/italaw3207.pdfRead about the conflicts between democracy and healthcare and the right to regulate, even if that means picking single payer and telling insurance companies to close up shop, and the plan to lock us in forever, i.e. WTO and the GATS - and its successor, TiSA- here: Americans may notice that the media has NEVER told them about THIS. Which one is the dream state then, which one is real. Guess.http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.405.5725&rep=rep1&type=pdfThats the real problem - the big problem. the key to the whole mess.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2016, 12:12:13 pm
content: QuoteTake a look at the constitution and see what the founding fathers laid out things for the federal government, and compare that vs. what the federal government is doing today.Free people are just that, free people. We dont need a court to rule over us.We need a revolution every 200 years.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2016, 12:37:00 pm
content: QuoteI don't think the constitution protected individual freedom - slavery was legal then in some of the signatory states: it is possible "people" was defined differently then. it only provides that everyone has the same rights, under the equal protection clause. and we routinely stripe people of their freedom by putting them in jail for example.The constitution limits the feds to a few things, like war, equal protection, post office, commerce, foreign policies, measurements, and tax collection. Everything else, technically and constitutionally, is the domain of the states.Today, we are anything but that.

author: Circlotron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2016, 01:31:57 pm
content: UPDATE: RABBIT-Free Australia says the State Government owes Victorians an explanation after spending $70,000 on saving rabbits — despite Australia facing the worst rabbit plague since 1995.This comes after an Olinda rabbit orphanage — which has divided readers after spending $1500 on fixing one rabbit’s teeth and another $1500 on a hernia operation - was given a $50,000 government grant to improve its shelter for sick and stray rabbits.http://www.heraldsun.com.au/leader/east/orphaned-olinda-rabbits-chew-through-up-to-3000-in-dental-and-medical-bills-at-nokill-shelter/story-fngnvlxu-1226829654834?nk=e56633b770ee6abfcdefe849048360d6-1455110845

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2016, 01:43:14 pm
content: Politicians in a democracy are naturally incentivized to spend more and more of other people's money so they get to stay in power.tyranny of the majority.

author: GreyWoolfe
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 10, 2016, 02:26:10 pm
content: Quote from: blueskull on February 10, 2016, 02:01:07 amSome people know how to scam the system. Many years ago, I was a salesman for Nabisco. My territory included Newark, NJ, arguably the armpit of the state. My wife(at that time) and I owned an older Ford station wagon (3 children) and come the first of the month, you would see BMWs, Cadillacs and Mercedes Benz cars parked around the state offices where they collected their checks. Back in the 90's I had a roommate that followed one of those 'homeless' people when he left his post on a busy off ramp of a busy highway. He walked about 6 blocks, turned a corner and was getting into a BMW when my roommate called him out. He flat out said that he made more money panhandling than his corporate job that he lost. He wasn't one of the brothers.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2016, 02:54:50 pm
content: Dannyf :"Politicians in a democracy are naturally incentivized to spend more and more of other people's money so they get to stay in power, tyranny of the majority."No, I think a big part of it is simple nepotism, churning, and a desire to see one's "friends" (or future cronies or employers) get a larger and larger slice of a shrinking pie. Also, many politicians of both sides share a contempt for the rules that apply to everybody, thinking themselves to be ablve them. Thats called narcissistic personality disorder, and its extremely common in the political class. I think its safe to say that a very large percentage of people who seek out positions of power are narcissists. And they have a broken moral compass, basically, no intrinsic sense of what is right and wrong.They are the people who think its all about them.But the fact is, we all have to live together as society, so society has to strike a balance. Don't mistake that for anything else.Americans have a lot in common, and the things you are trying to put forward as dividing us are not as important as you claim. Meanwhile, bad things are happening but they are being done without our knowledge.We all need to have countries and societies to exist.Also, unfortunately, at the end of World War II, we stepped away from the job of creating some universal right to exist. So there is no legal right to exist. Just as we never abolished slavery. Its still legal in the US if somebody is convicted of any crime.People's rights still flow almost exclusively from the country they are citizens of. And there it ends. As I was saying, only juridicial persons, (corporations) now have universal, supranational rights. Natural people need such kinds of rights too.The dark side of us all being dependent on this system for our instantiation as rights-holding people is discussed quite eloquently in the essay "The Decline of the Nation-State and the End of the Rights of Man" at the end of Part Two, of Hannah Arendt's "The Origins of Totalitarianism" (Page 267) which you can read for free online in many places, its author having donated it before her death to the public. That chapter is basically a discussion of statelessness. It seems particularly timely in the light of the global refugee crisis. The entire book is worth reading as it functions as an explanation of totalitarianism and its ecosystem. How it arises and what it is and what it isn't. Very informative.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2016, 03:17:20 pm
content: Quote--------------The WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services and its successor, TiSA, currently nearing completion in Geneva, forbids the establishment of any new state owned enterprises/monopolies and mandates the privatization of almost all existing ones, on all levels of government.The exceptions are quite narrow and "almost never apply". See here:http://www.iatp.org/files/GATS_and_Public_Service_Systems.htmThen the procurements for those commodities is filtered through the (global) Government Procurement Agreement's e-tendering system.Huge global companies that specialize in government services, construction, managing and staffing schools, hospitals, repair of infrastructure, and imprisoning whomever it is profitable to do so at the lowest cost - will handle those things.The role of the government will be confined to the politicians themselves and matters which are defined as follows:"'a service supplied in the exercise of governmental authority' means any service which is supplied neither on a commercial basis, nor in competition with one or more service suppliers."That will apply on all levels, federal, state, local, and quasi-public. (any area that receives any public money which will be more and more as many jobs dry up will step by step increasingly be procured through the global GPA if it uses public money. So schools, hospitals, and numerous other entities may be forced to privatize and globalize)More athttps://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/reports/tisa-versus-public-services-------Privatizations often are colossal failures.. That is being made irrelevant - perhaps thats the point of doing it. In any case, they still want to do it anyway.-------http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/17/03.htmhttp://www.inthepublicinterest.org/article/out-control-coast-coast-failures-outsourcing-public-services-profit-corporations

author: HackedFridgeMagnet
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2016, 10:26:47 pm
content: Here's a tiny example from our state.Tasmania's once proud "Fox Task Force" has now been disbanded.The summary is once many years ago apparently someone saw a fox getting off a Ferry.So our state got millions of dollars of funding to eradicate "them".In many peoples view there has never been any credible evidence of their existance in Tasmania.People speculate this is because the Devils raid their lairs.The "Fox Task Force" once found a warm carcass that the post mortem indicated had been dead for more than 24 hours. Meaning it was planted, by guys wanting to keep their jobs.http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php/article/the-dead-fox-that-crossed-the-roadThey never found a live fox so to keep the funding flowing it seems they imported a lot of scats from Victoria and later found themalll overTasmania.They even found one on Bruny Island, it must have caught another ferry.They should've spent this money eradicating things that did exist like noxious weeds and Feral Cats.http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-02/no-evidence-of-foxes-in-tasmania2c-report-slams-taskforce/5425266I know it's small bickies compared to the Department of Defence but you would wish the public servants could do some public service instead of public mischief.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2016, 10:59:55 pm
content: QuoteWhy should people collecting welfare checks don't deserve the dignity to drive around in luxury cars, or to live in McMansions, or to wear expensive gold chains, ....., just as other tax paying people do?There are politicians and newpapers today that openly call for such "dignity". Anything less would be unfair.

author: splin
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 25, 2016, 05:20:42 pm
content: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3462228/Mayor-insists-120-000-bridge-built-SQUIRRELS-cross-busy-road-Holland-not-waste-money-despite-five-animals-using-four-years.html$33,600 per squirrel.Couldn't they have just tied a rope between two trees or would that be an affront to their dignity by forcing them to shimmy across upside down rather than walking tall with heads and tails held high?

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 25, 2016, 08:20:32 pm
content: "Bullshit"The difficulty with such a discussion is that one man's bullshit is another man's delicacy. Or vise versa.The squirrel example above is a perfect demonstration of it.