vaccinations - why on increase

>> Once the United States gets fully socialized...

Somewhat off topic I know, but if you look at the per capita Nobel Prizes for Medicine, the country which turns out tops is the United Kingdom, which has a fully socialized health system.

In fact the UK with 60 million inhabitants and 117 Nobel Prizes is way in front of the US with 320 prizes for 300 million inhabitants. So socialized medicine has nothing to do with "lack of innovation".

ROFL! That's because it's Norway that awards it. Try looking at any of the dozens of "top medical breakthough" lists. 70% plus come from the USA and most of those are greedy corporations that wouldn't get a Nobel Prize if they cured cancer. Your logic is flawed. Obama got one of those trinkets for absolutely nothing at all. Gore for complete lies. It's a joystick to control weak minded sheep, and means NOTHING. You're clearly a Brit, cause even half the UK knows better.

enjoy your 20% vat starting in January. Ours is 0%. The USA will be kicking our moron out of office asap and undoing this absurd abomination of reason called socialism within a few years.

I did misspeak about one thing, Sweden awards the Nobel prize for medicine. It doesn't make any difference anyway. You combine the population of Sweden and Norway and you've got 1/3rd the population of California. As many people live in Illinois as those two "Countries" combined. Geesh, tabloid culture can get folks to believe anything.

>>That's because it's Norway that awards it.

OK, let us see if I get this right? Norway awards Nobel Prizes to the UK because of what? This sounds like one of those conspiracy theories which Americans love.

>>You're clearly a Brit, cause even half the UK knows better

First of all there's no logic in that  sentence (if the UK knows better and I'm from the UK?) and secondly I'm not.

>>70% plus come from the USA and most of those are greedy corporations that wouldn't get a Nobel Prize if they cured cancer

There's even less logic in this. Either these "top" corporations do a good job or they don't. By the sounds of it they don't. BTW do you know where Viagra comes from?

>>enjoy your 20% vat starting in January. Ours is 0%

Actually where I live it is 19%. Secondly the US has various sales taxes which vary state-to-state and sometimes includes community tax as well, and thirdly where I do come from we have the highest standard of living in the world.

>>The USA will be kicking our moron ...

Well how did you manage to elect him in the first place? Must be a country full of morons then?

>>You combine the population of Sweden and Norway

I don't see what the combined population of anything has to do with handing out the prizes. Either they are deserved or they are not.. Now are you trying to say that the prizes handed out  to the UK are not deserved? (And please leave this Republican/Democrat crap out of it - that type of American politics is boring)

"First of all there's no logic in that  sentence (if the UK knows better and I'm from the UK?) and secondly I'm not."  - I said "even half" the UK knows better. Brits represent the majority of those who DON'T. It's not illogical you just have poor reading comprehension skills. To be expected from someone who lacks reasoning skills.

"There's even less logic in this. Either these "top" corporations do a good job or they don't. By the sounds of it they don't. BTW do you know where Viagra comes from?"  - I have no idea what you are talking about here. I do know that Pfizer invented Viagra, and it's based in New York yet I'd hardly rank it among the worlds top medical innovations, even though it is American. Greedy doesn't mean they do a bad job, being American just means they wouldn't get any awards from a Socialist Country unless they were patently un-American like Al Gore, and Hussein Obama.

"Well how did you manage to elect him in the first place? Must be a country full of morons then?" - Yes, like I said, half morons, they're wising up though. That did make me laugh though.

Google "top medical breakthroughs", you'll probably be a bit embarrassed.

"where I do come from we have the highest standard of living in the world." - So it's Norway then? Well no wonder you propagandize the world based on the whims of the Nobel society. Hope that "high living" works out for your grandkids. BTW, please tell me, did you have more than 1 child?

Removed Philosophy & Religion from the cross-posting of this question.

WaterStreet,
Zone Advisor,
these Other zones

>>So it's Norway then?

Wrong again!
 
>> I do know that Pfizer invented Viagra

Sildenafil (compound UK-92,480) was synthesized by a group of pharmaceutical chemists working at Pfizer's Sandwich, Kent, research facility in England
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sildenafil

>>Google "top medical breakthroughs", you'll probably be a bit embarrassed.

Confused would be a better word. I did just that and took the first entry :-

http://healthcare.change.org/blog/view/top_medical_breakthroughs_to_start_2010

which looks like another of those US Health Care "how great we are" sites justifing the huge amounts of money they get out of the US ecomony. Numbers 4 and 5 from this list have been well known for years, according to my daughter who is actually a British national health doctor.

yeah, of course she is. And knowing how the NHS works she probably spends her days sitting behind a desk filling out paper work & apparently the "highest standard of living in the world" statement is more opinion as the documented leader is Norway. So you are just delusional. You at least will always be sure to be right when you make stuff up.

I didn't even see that site because I researched the stats less than a year ago for my thesis. Averaging in over a dozen sources the USA is responsible for an average of 70% of the worlds medical breakthroughs from 2005-2009. Combining Canada, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand (which does more than its share) to get nearly 2.5x the population of the US but only 1/4 of the the medical innovation at a bit more than 15% of the credit. Yes, 2.5x the population and 1/4 the innovation. If this were extrapolated across all other fields that means that Americans are 10x more productive than any other western citizen. Kinda sad knowing how lazy some of us are. Of course when Pfizer, a New York based company invents something you want England to get credit just because the plant was there (probably to dodge taxation). The whole point of this was the fiscal motivation to produce innovative medical solutions and the fiscal motivation was definitely not England, and the NHS.

My goodness. I do admire your tenacity, most Europeans throw their hands up in the air, have a tizzy, and walk away before saying much of anything at all. At least you gave me enough information to be certain that you are delusional instead of leaving me to just guess so.

we should stop discussing this now that the admin removed "philosophy and religion" it's now just strictly a scientific question. The answer is: vaccinations have gone up because the US health system paid so much money to greedy companies to produce wonder drugs. The pattern will end if the US health system goes the way of the socialist western world, as there will no longer be financial incentive to produce such things.

>>Once the United States gets fully socialized

what do you mean by "socialized" in this context? I know that is what the primary discussion been? Can you define it for me in simple terms?

>>rfid
what is that?

>> rfid tags are radio frequency identification tags. They have little RF (radio frequency) transmitters / receivers in them to communicate wirelessly to a nearby controller. ... Thinkpads_User

>>Plus there is the government's need to put rfid tags in all citizens.

so that was meant to be a joke? sorry, i am naive on that slang.

socialized in this context means that citizens of a Country give all of their money to the government and then "trust" the government to take care of them. It's voluntary slavery, under the guise of social progress. Proponents of such a system would claim that it is "fair" and "generous" but it really is a way for the government to have supreme power over its citizens. Once it has their money the only other step to complete slavery is for it to become their God. Human beings become dazed lemmings blissfully marching toward a cliff, so long as they are kept comfortable long enough once they wake from their trance it will be far too late to turn back. Check out this:

http://iwantyourmoney.net

OK. Thanks for that explanation.

>>Then you may see vaccine distribution drop off.
Isn't Gov that is pushing for the vaccination. Why would you think that socialized gov will stop that process? Do you feel that private industry like the pharma won't have a voice in it?

>>we should stop discussing this now that the admin removed "philosophy and religion" it's now just strictly a scientific question

So answer it in a strict scientific manner and not with an American political slant. Do you think the rest of the world cares a damn about your political machinsations? RFID tags on people, what a load of crap!

The private industry gets devastated by socialism. The government basically creates an anti-competitive monopoly and ends up employing the majority of the nation's workers. While benevolent governments may continue to produce and distribute existing medical innovations there will not be anyone to pay for the new innovations. So firstly the pattern will level out. No new innovations, no new vaccines. So long as the government remains benevolent we could hope it would continue to invest in the care of its citizens and perhaps philanthropic care of others. However, Hitler's Germany was a prime example of how quickly malevolence can take power. The second major risk is the Country spending itself into insolvency. Living by high standards today and running out of money tomorrow. Greece is a recent example of the dangers of excess. Up until last year they were reporting very nice budget numbers, until the real numbers appeared and their house of cards collapsed. Many western nations are already nearing insolvency, their favorable numbers being VERY suspicious. Once the US marketplace is dissolved there will be no pharma to speak of other than that run by the government.

The United States was founded on a complete rejection of Kings and Governments owning people. It was founded on Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. The rights of all people to keep the fruits of their labor and be safe from tyrannical government. Todays U.S. government is anti-American which is why Europeans like it so much. Europe is already long down the path of global insignificance, and the U.S. is currently following. I hope we stop.

You may be surprised to learn that I live in one of the poorest Countries in the world. My family and I have chosen to spend our time and money on trying to serve. However, that was a choice that I believe we must be FREE to make. When it becomes a matter of legislation it becomes slavery.

" RFID tags on people, what a load of crap!"

I think he meant that as a joke. Sarcasm, it is really pretty funny.

>>Hitler's Germany was a prime example of how quickly malevolence can take power

Maybe, but it actually wasn't socialist, although the term appeared in the name.

>>The government basically creates an anti-competitive monopoly and ends up employing the majority of the nation's workers

None of this applies to any European country.

>>Todays U.S. government is anti-American which is why Europeans like it so much

Really? You have of course been around and asked everybody I suppose?

>>Europe is already long down the path of global insignificance

It is only the biggest single market in the world, whose GDP exceeds that of the US. Germany in fact is the second largest exporter in the world, after China. That's insignificance for you.

Thanks for your example on socialism and Greece..

>>trying to serve.

May I know the nature of the work behind how you are being a blessing in this country?

"May I know the nature of the work behind how you are being a blessing in this country?" - I am a teacher at a school, we ran youth programs, and I also worked to train new college graduates in my field. That's a good short list. Our visas didn't come through this year so we have to find a new place to work, but 3 years here have been rewarding in the ways that count. Let me say that I don't want you to just believe me, my hope is that you will look very carefully & come to your own conclusion. I can assure you living for money, and even just material happiness, is a crumby choice. A lesson I didn't learn very quickly.

">>The government basically creates an anti-competitive monopoly and ends up employing the majority of the nation's workers
None of this applies to any European country."

Not true, and NHS is a prime example: "NHS is world's biggest employer after Indian rail and Chinese Army", I think now Walmart has hit the ranks too. However not bad for a Country of 60 million to compete with the two Billion person Countries in the world. I've heard quotes of as much as 1/3 of the population is owned, I mean employed, by the government, just like your daughter not so coincidentally. cite: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article1050197.ece 

"It is only the biggest single market in the world, ..." - If we counted inter-state commerce in our "GDP" we'd have yaw whooped. We just don't because it's bogus. My next door neighbor selling me a shirt doesn't amount to GDP. The US is no more fiscally responsible these days than Europe, and it's looking more like Greece every day. A direction I pray we end.

@BigRat, if you are trying to understand me and not just trolling you should watch this little diddy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94lW6Y4tBXs ... there's a Brit I can agree with.

Oops, I called the UK a Country. My mistake, I'm sure I have forfeit all credibility for that little slip. Though even if those Countries were one Country it would be a tiny Country. Geesh. I used to know the difference between England, Britain, and the UK. Something about humpbacked wales or something (*joke*). I knew a lot about the Northern Ireland and the other one thing too. It just gets too confusing trying to figure out what kind of madness yaw got going over there.

So that I don't sound entirely negative, I will say that it would be nice if the states held each other as accountable fiscally as the EU does. Yes, the EU is yet another somewhat arbitrary grouping of tiny Countries.... but its whipping Greece into shape had a twinkle of genius in it. Now yaw just need to take those lazy self-absorbed crybabies over your knee and spank 'em. I lost a lot of money to the Greek Government's outright lies. I have more reasonable cause to riot against them than those leeches that want to drink coffee all day and work a 30 minute work day 4 days a week. So they are on my blacklist. Liars the lot of 'em. Now I am suspicious that Britain, France, and even Germany are all biding their time before they admit to their real numbers.

>>- If we counted inter-state commerce in our "GDP" we'd have yaw whooped

You do.

The abbrieviation is Gross DOMESTIC Product.

Less opinion and more fact please.

>>there's a Brit I can agree with.

I watched that. It's just a Tory MP having a go at a Labour Prime Minister. Now that the Tories are in power, I'd like to see the SAME politician having a go at the TORY Prime Minister about debt, taxation and the like - the same Prime Minister who is now raising VAT to 20%, which you have so derided.

>>http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article1050197.ece 

Try to keep things into perspective : 2 per cent of the 30 million people of working age.
Furthermore the number of people not having health care in Britain is ZERO as against some 46 million Americans. The same is true for Germany and almost for France. [Foreign residents registered before 2009 don't have to have health insurance - all frenchmen do of course]. You can add in most of the rest of Europe as far as health coverage is concerned. Your claim was the majority of workers and an anti-competitive monopoly. The NHS in Britain is NOT a monopoly

For the same Times article :

"John Reid, the Health Secretary, said he was delighted with the growth, but added that he was aware that more action was needed to tackle existing staff shortages."

This is the Health Minister from the SAME party as your video. The country spends less than 8% of GPD, as against America's *wonderful* private system (which ostensibly Obama is going to ruin) of 12% and Germany's 10. Even so, in America state and federal government funds (taxpayers money) pay 44% of the costs (through Medicaid and Medicare). Clearly the UK has value for money!

>> Now I am suspicious...

You're not suspicios of anything, you're just one of those silly rednecks who think that they can slag off Europe in order to play their silly political games and believe a lot of old myths without ever checking up on the facts. You combine what you think is humour with insult.

>> I lost a lot of money to the Greek Government's outright lies

Unless you are a currency speculator, I don't believe a word of it. And if you are a currency speculator, you got what you deserved.

Here's that same Tory: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hgt763qTrBo

There is no American that has no health care. Government funded hospitals are not allowed to turn anyone away regardless of their health care coverage. That's why we have so much trouble with Mexicans jumping the border and going into the hospital. That whole "no health care" thing is a lie yaw propagate readily but it's still a lie.

2% of 30,000,000 = 600,000 but this page: http://www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/thenhs/about/Pages/overview.aspx says "1.7m people" ... so, you seem to be lying again. The 30% quote may have been just public sector in general, I'll confess, as the NHS propaganda site seems to be accurate.

btw, BigRat GDP is PRODUCTION, not the same item changing hands. Selling off your gold, and buying it back, and then selling it again... Europe is notorious for it's fuzzy GDP math. For instance, you braggardly directly compare your base GDP calculation (18 trillion USD) to the US (14 trillion USD), however you have twice the population. To even tie you'd need nearly twice what you produce. Even exclude the non-EU (and the GDPless Countries) you'd still need 21 trillion! Again, that's just assuming you haven't fudged the numbers... which is par for the course from everyone.

Now I mention above the "GDPless" this is where the math gets really fuzzy. Since GDP is "GROSS" then gigantic losses are not usually factored in. Which is how your government convinces you that your economy is productive when it's really not. In the end the numbers are so skewed it's impossible to use them for any honest appraisals. Your NHS swallows huge portions of your GDP for lunch but you still feel good about your "world's largest economy" despite the fact that China owns you, and person by person the US is nearly twice as productive as you (using this measure)... Yet your noses are high in the air! A proud Brit... and endangered species.

>>A lesson I didn't learn very quickly.

have you written your experience/journey online as any article/blog for us to learn from your story and what motivated you etc? the mere fact that you are happy and willing to server others and derive joy in them, tells me that you are not satisfied with trivial things in life.

why are more # of vaccinations recommended...

Can you clarify if you are asking about an increase in vaccinations or an increase in recommendations for vaccinations?

@BigRat:

This sounds like one of those conspiracy theories which Americans love.

"SOME" Americans! Please? Thank you! There are still a couple of us who don't let our world view be determined by youtube. (Sigh... okay... "many" Americans, but there are also few in other parts of the world.)

Tom

"have you written your experience/journey online"
Thanks for asking, but it's not a very exciting story. It is a lot cynical. The more money I earned the more money I spent. One day I panicked. We had a big house on big land and I still wasn't happy. I was buying silly gadgets that amounted to just junk. I went to Mexico for a youth program, came back, and asked my wife if she was happy. She wasn't happy either. So we sold everything, and left. I can't say we're happy all the time here either, but it's not that different than there, only now we've moved away from being glutenous leeches and toward generosity. We try to help, and I emphasize try, it is not as easy as it sounds & the UN running around here wasting money is a prime example of waste.

I believe God, and I believe He would have us live for others instead of live for ourselves. I also believe that only when people are free to choose charity is it really charity at all. A socialist society would claim that it is serving "the less fortunate", that "spreading the wealth" is charitable and "the right thing to do". What it creates is a generation that expects handouts instead of hard work. We're now blessed to know our children are not being given that parasitic example. They are instead learning many things that their American peers will never understand. 1. God is right., 2. Life is not about ourselves.

The west lives in a vacuum of global naivety. Preferring to throw money at problems than themselves. It does no good except a placebo effect. Numbing their tiny little piece of conscience. While their money shows up here, is scooped up by corrupt rich tyrannical "leaders" and used to make them even more powerful. A few ambitious souls will strap on a backpack and wander around here for a few weeks or even a month or two. They'll hand out money like candy, and come to the same bad conclusions as last month's tourists. They will leave and honestly believe they helped. They'll never realize that they made the beggars that live here today. That kid with the twisted arm, his own father did that to him so that tourists would feel sorry for him. That money they handed that little girl on the corner, that was immediately snatched by an older boy, a bit was used to buy glue to sniff, the rest was handed over to a grown man. That grown man has more money than most legitimate businesses. Enjoy your minute of bliss tourist, numb your ego and wander away, back where you came from to tell your friends about the great work you've done. Show them your pictures, make up your embellished stories, buy yourself some ice-cream, maybe grab a Starbucks. You "deserve it" for all your charity, time to relax for another 10 years, you've done your part.

When money is elevated above anything else only evil ensues. The vast majority of the world's population will seldom know the security a westerner has their whole life. The bottom billion, they will never know it. Not even for 1 day. I'm gonna cry now.

>>Can you clarify if you are asking about an increase in vaccinations or an increase in recommendations for vaccinations?

both; they co-relate, don't they?

WaterStreet, fine. I am learning a lot about politics through this thread, too.

RRRRyan, people like you are rare, in the convictions you developed and how you are aligning the horizons of your life.

so did you get a local job to support yourself? a computer job? (saw that you are a coder)

Your thorough Anushahanna, thanks for the compliments, I did try to get a business going which is why things went bad. The "powers that be" don't like foreigners earning income here, at least not without getting their cut, and I'm not talking about taxes. There's malevolence all over the world, but without experiencing it a few times we remain pretty naive, get off guard, and here comes another Hitler, Hussein, Stalin, or a hundred other examples of human nature in the real world.

>>They are instead learning many things that their American peers will never understand.

what is your vision to help your American friends with your experience?

>>The "powers that be" don't like foreigners

Issues exist everywhere in different shape or form, right? there is nothing more 'holy' about the poor country?

I don't know what I can do, experiences are not something that can be conveyed adequately, people need to learn the hard way almost always. I imagine if people lived 4 or 5 times longer than they do they'd hit a point where they'd have learned enough hard lessons to really make some good decisions. Instead we get old and feeble before we ever really "get it".

You are exactly right about poor Countries. We are lead to believe (as I was) that we can do more good in places where there is more bad. The fact is that places where there is "more bad" are often that way for a reason and it is more difficult to help.  I would tend to define 'holy' as a place where there is no bad, not much of that anywhere on earth really.

I do think it's said when human beings arbitrarily declare something 'holy'. This is not their place. The only one thing in the universe that a human can call Holy is God Himself. The rest is for God Himself to decide. To declare something Holy is to declare that I am also Holy, and that I am a god. It seems that the real God might not appreciate that kind of arrogance.

As is so often the case with most right-wing Americans they actually don't know the difference between western-style socialism and communism. Meantime they are ready to condemn government sponsored health care systems which look after anyone and everyone irrespective of their wealth. Whilst in America they'll ask you if you can affort to pay before they carry out the surgery.

Make no mistake the drug companies all around the world make huge amounts of money from National Health Services. In fact they depend on that income to fund their future researches.

I am not going to enter the childish discussion about 'my scientists are better than yours'. That is so pathetic as to beggar belief. If you want to just quote statistics about Nobel prizes, fine do so. But please don't try to rubbish the Nobel prize system as it recognises excellence in science. Of course outside science it has all sorts of politically leaning awards but that has nothing to do with the recognition of world-class scientists. Linus Pauling received two Nobel prizes - I'll leave you to find what they were for, but meanwhile please don't attempt to denigrate the achievements of top scientists the world over who are awarded a Nobel prize for their work.

"As is so often the case with most right-wing Americans they actually don't know the difference between western-style socialism and communism" -  As is often the case most Brits are deluded enough to think their version of the difference is the difference. Government worshiping Atheism is the only difference & is a tiny little step away that Europe has already got in spades. Of course you'll disagree, but you'd also be wrong. Not bad, not evil, just wrong.

"Make no mistake the drug companies all around the world make huge amounts of money from National Health Service." - Blatantly unsubstantiated.

"I am not going to enter the childish discussion about 'my scientists are better than yours..." - And then you do. Your European friend above started the "childish" discussion about Nobel prizes being the gauge not me. I finished it with exactly what you've agreed. That it is political and meaningless. Of course they will throw in a few actual world contributors in with the idiots they promote. They have to maintain the illusion of credibility. You really think Linus Pauling wasn't already doing his activism before his science award? Their allegiances shift over the years too, you should research about why Gandhi never received one. Very interesting commentary on their allegiances in the 1940s.

After WW2 was when the NHS began (and socialism in Britain). Linus Pauling was the wrong generation to even be considered in this discussion, even though he WAS an American and would bolster my premises, not yours the timing was wrong. He did only win one prize for science. His other was for anti-war activism after WW2 (which again explains why he won the science award). Seems like strange timing to reject war, would he prefer Hitler? Anyway, my conclusion is that after the NHS was founded, socialism was established, and Britain headed down that road, they have become irrelevant. Of course they all talk like they're relevant, but you really aren't and you know it. Your relevance only comes from how much you can influence America. Which is why you were more interested in American elections than your own & get so bent out of shape in us "right-winged" Americans voicing our own opinion. You have no vote in anything relevant, and we do. Must really piss you off. Fact is I had a Yorkshire Brit tell me just that, so I'm not just making this up.

Europe makes little progress in any area of Science. Not just medicine, but space programs, technological advancement of any kind, invention of any kind. Very little contribution coming from anywhere in westernized Europe. Russia does manage to keep blowing up rockets accidentally, at least they are trying. Britain has even pulled influence from very fragile societies like India, Africa, Hong Kong. While the damage is not evident now, it will become so in about 40 years. The Pakistan/India conflict is waiting to boil over, and the economy of Hong Kong will further amass communist China's grip. I often ponder whether this is reversible, but I'm quite certain that it's much too late to fix this clockwork that has been set in motion by socialist ideals. Of course so long as yaw make the Norwegians happy that's a good enough gauge for you. Heck, yaw are even having fewer kids. There's a great indicator of ambition. Ambition dies as socialism strengthens, Europe is a nanny state populated with crybabies bankrupting their governments for the handouts they live off of. A third of your Country works for the government in pointless "dead wood" desk jobs with no greater purpose than securing their pension and maintaining their status. Looking at the EU as a whole even Germany hasn't been able to keep their deficit within the agreed limits, and China owns them all. On the bright side, by the time China gets around to taking over in about 50 years or so Caucasians in Europe will be a tiny minority. Back to the 1 kid per family ambitions.

Unless you're well passed your early 50s you'll probably be around to see the end result of your idealistic philosophies. I call them idealistic, because they really are. Despite your opinions I am no warmonger, I hate war, & love peace. I can completely appreciate your hopes to "provide for those less fortunate." My world view is so much different than yours though. I carry no debt, I work and pay for whatever I own. I deal with problems when they arise and don't put them off until tomorrow. I would contend odds are I have given more to charity in my lifetime than you will in your lifetime and have even anonymously contributed to other people's medical bills in the thousands. Socialism's attempt to legislate charity is wrong, and resembles the Taliban in more ways than one. So using charity to justify it is just something I cannot accept. It's a lie.

Linus Pauling is a great example. If he'd had his way, a very idealistic hope for a war-free future, prior to WW2 Hitler would have just taken over the whole of Europe, and perhaps the whole world. Maybe if you'd have more than 1.5 children you'd care a bit more about the state you leave this planet in. Even when you do care, then you'd rather contribute to environmentalist causes for the illusion that you're helping the planet while at the same time you are packaging everything up in a nice red bow to hand over to RED China. Who despite their growing power still represent the draconian feudal age of government & the potential for destruction that goes with it. Think Qin Shi Huang with nukes. They legislate the number of babies a family can have, which despite its absurdity China woman still have more babies than Germans. So sad, but just look at your populations. You're an endangered species and don't even know it!

Just because we're doomed doesn't mean I ain't gonna go down fighting. You wait and see who we elect as president the next go round. Americans ain't done fighting and all you ninny Brits can do is watch and complain, you forfeited your relevance a long time ago. Marching around in red jackets sipping tea and "being gentlemen" was bullshit since yaw invented it. You point a gun at my family and you'll meet a barbarian like you cannot imagine. You probably hate Tony Blair too, further testament to your faulty logic. I find it very sad that you now waddle in a puddle of your own making and continue to try to proclaim yourself correct! Screaming up from the mud at those of us that still have managed to stay dry. I suppose somewhere in those cobwebs of neurons you have developed there on that tiny little state-sized island you probably figure it's our fault that you fell in that pit in the first place. You probably still refer to the US as "the colonies" to feel better about your impending doom and 50 years of irrelevance. You choose to ignore the South Korea/North Korea contrast when contemplating decisions of intervening in other Countries & wag your finger like a schoolmarm who could never actually succeed at the things she teaches.

You keep trying to get your government to live up to your ideals while personally doing nothing but talking. I'll keep doing something personally while telling my government to mind its own business and firing any of them who fails to recognize what is their business. I'm just glad you Brits aren't allowed to vote in the U.S., now if you'd only take California our Country may avoid your pathetic fate. Otherwise get ready for that nasty muddy pit of despair to get really crowded.

Hilarious diatribe. Thank you for brightening my day.

of course you'd call a handful of paragraphs a diatribe. It probably took you 3 sittings to read it all as well... Which kind of explains a lot. Don't take my word for it, here's a young Brit that seems to get it:

http://doodleflux.com/blogs/venting/id/105

Though I'm sure you'd also classify his blog post as a diatribe. Probably anything you disagree with. What I found hilarious was how few posts about the irrelevance of Britain I had to read to find one written by a Brit. Obviously I loved this quote:

"...it has become an ignorant, technologically adverse bunch of septic Sun readers who frequent Gala bingo or believe that their goal in life is to secure a pension rather than go out and create something wonderful."

At least I can be sure that you won't be reproducing to any significant degree.

Excellent, amusing stuff - keep posting, you are brightening my day even more. I look forward to the next instalment.

you'll probably roll over laughing if you can manage to read all of this:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig4/ellis1.html

Though it is very long, it explains my position rather well, and yours sadly enough as well.

A bit dated - I ask you, 1884. Can't you do better than that? Meantime keep me smiling by posting more of your stuff. So far you have no idea what my position is - but keep assuming, as it makes me laugh all the more.

I figured you wouldn't read it. It is a fictional commentary on the dire dangers of nanny states like Britain. The date is actually 1867, which further enhances its prophetic nature. The version on that website was a later version of the same story. Maybe you would prefer to read a short Wikipedia summary on the story: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatio_Bunce instead?

Bunce actually means: "excess or unnecessary financial provision". Would have been obvious to the readers at the time that it was a parable.

I know where you stand, you're a Brit. I already told you, you're a Brit in a Pit with a skull full of .... but I digress. Had a great few conversations about Britain's dilapidated state today. It's one of history's more useful lessons. Here's one of my favorite YouTubes, maybe you can make it through that:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94lW6Y4tBXs

I'm sure you'll claim some moderate view now, but your introductory sentence: "As is so often the case with most right-wing Americans they actually don't know the difference between western-style socialism and communism." Gave you away as the arrogant downtown London pillock that you are, no matter what you'll claim in your attempts to discredit me. That being said you have at the absolute maximum 1 child, and your arrogance wreaks of elderly, perhaps old enough to get to miss the result of your arrogant meddling. Actually, being that you are likely old your maximum is probably 2 children, but not your children. At most they will have 1 child, if any at all. You now spend your days self-consumed with hobbies to spend your pension on. ROFL. Yup.... hope that makes you laugh.

It does make me laugh - keep going.

I'm done. I'm glad you enjoyed it. For my whole short life I'm sure I'll never understand people who introduce themselves by arrogantly and offensively attacking people already involved in the conversation, but like I said, you point a gun at me or my family and you'll get more than you'd ever imagine. Same with your arrogant and aggressive words.

As I'm sure you missed since you seem incapable of mustering more than a few sentences, my thesis was on socialism, I hardly deserved your flap. You didn't even have to assume, you just had to be entirely ignorant. These concepts are far too complex for anyone to claim omniscience as your first sentence on this post pompously pronounces. Most who have read at all can do better than you.

Shock & Awe... game over... you lose. Troll.

Very amusing stuff - thank you. I do hope you feel better after that prolonged diatribe. It's good for the soul to get it off your chest. Keep smiling young man, you have bightened my day more than you can ever imagine.

;-) You may well be a nice old guy, but talk is cheap. This certainly is not something that will be "off my chest" anytime soon, God willing I would die before I give up the cause. I won't stop until something changes, I break, or the cause becomes futile. I'm not even sure of the latter.

Trust me I'm no weakling, and can write another 400 pages @ 80 wpm on the subject for you alone if there were promise. It seems barren here, so I will cast my seed in more fertile places. When I say I'm done, it's because I've given you plenty that you could wake up, even in your old age. I will continue to email young Brits like the one who wrote the post above and thank them for their inspiration and the hope it brings to see people buried in lies coming up for air and seeing reality. Tell them to keep fighting the good fight, and encourage them that they will have their chance.

I will thank you for the opportunity to refine my message, to reconsider it for the thousandth time, and to be fully certain that I'd rather die doing the work I'm doing than building model ships inside of glass bottles whilst listening to the weather channel with my last 30 years funded by my children and their children. This is the fate of far too many human beings who have so much more to offer but have been robbed of every ounce of ambition by a systematic spiral into a living death. Socialism, the frog in the pot. You can say "ribbit" all you want, but as for me, my house, and God willing a large enough portion of the USA, we say: "HELL NO!"

Your anger just makes me smile. A coder that has only managed to amass 18,000 points in 10 years. About as good as the stuff you write - except it makes me laugh, so keep going and give me some more laughs.

:-) ... If you look at my stats you'll see that the day EE locked down answers (you may not have noticed that EE did that but I noticed near the end of August) I started answering questions to get my 10k points for account upgrade. It took me a few hours. The rest came in over the following week as other answers were accepted. I haven't answered any questions since. I'm much too busy with activism, work, and moving Country.
 
Your short sightedness is forgivable. You'd have to be especially detail oriented to have noticed that the dates on my points were all in the last few weeks & especially good at deduction to have realized that question posters often take quite some time to accept answers. So of course you couldn't have known how faulty your judgment was, but it was still faulty. Not evil, just wrong.

Anyway, I've been laughing about how I overshot my goal of 10k points by nearly double accidentally.

Finally, anger is a broad term that the dispassionate will use to criticize those who still have something worth living for. I am passionate, and really hope you find something to stir you passion. Even if you despise my position I would still consider this conversation worthwhile if you were to write a thoughtful book or go back to school and study, or just read a bit more about the topics you currently flippantly respond to.

I have no use for making copies of myself, my goal is to see people think for themselves. The "wonderful things", as that brilliant young blogger called them, will come from that.

I don't bother to have a discussion with you because you are too immoderate in your language, too irrational in your arguments, too ill informed, and seem incapable of not assuming what I am like. You have yet to mature sufficiently to realise that being abusive does not win arguments. Instead it just makes you look insecure and childish. That is why I laugh at what you write.

You may even make some valid points but as you come across so badly I am not going to give you the pleasure of knowing what those points might be.

Meantime keep me laughing with your continued diatribe. I look forward to your next instalment.

"As is so often the case with most right-wing Americans they actually don't know the difference between western-style socialism and communism." .... "You have yet to mature sufficiently to realise that being abusive does not win arguments."

ROFL! Go back to building your ship in a bottle you hypocrite troll.

You could have proved me wrong, but you chose not to, perhaps because the cap fits too well.

Hey red coat, the war of ideas is every bit as dangerous as a war with guns. You keep being a sissy whining about moderation and manners and you'll get your arse kicked right out of existence. You've got to stand for something or you'll fall for anything. Inventing rules for things that have no rules is for people that lack common sense.

You can keep playing these games by your invented rules, but people seldom change their minds and arguments are rarely, if ever, "won". What can happen is that we can reinforce the like-minded, encouraging them to more boldness, and once the ideas are firmly polarized then sooner or later the winners, and losers, need to be decided somehow. I prefer democratic votes over guns myself. Perhaps the reason there have been more than 100 wars in as many years is because too few people take the war of ideas seriously enough and by the time they even notice things have erupted into violence. God forbid you'd read a thesis by some 25 year old American instead of building that ship in a bottle or putting together a 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle. Some day your kid or two and I may be on opposite sides of some battlefield holding a stupid gun and ready to shoot the other all because passions weren't spent at the proper time in the proper manner.

What you are arguing for, idealogical "western socialism" is the very kind of idea that can result in mass murder. It has in the past, and will in the future. So you keep preaching your "western socialism" and I'll keep listing dozens of reasons that you are a fool to do so. Maybe when the front forms and the sides are clear, the numbers will be too intimidating for it to come to bloodshed. God I hope so, but it would be a first in the history of mankind. Nowadays people are more complacent than ever. The folks playing in the crossfire will be the first casualties.

I don't want my kids to be doomed to repeat what history has repeated so many thousands of times. With technology like it is today a tyrant can wipe out the planet. Your savior Obama could be just the guy that ushers in a flawed philosophy that paves the way for Kim Jun Ill's son, or Iran, or some new Molosavic to wipe out millions with one word. That's the future we face and right now, ideas, are our only hope at avoiding it.

So maybe today I'm chicken little. Perhaps more people will laugh than take me seriously. As soon as Iran nukes Israel and kills a million people you'll sober up and realize that hobbies aren't so important as the condition of this planet. The United States had something amazing with the Constitution. While it may be old, and seemingly feeble, the day it dies will be the day the globe realizes what fools we have all been. I'm sure I don't even realize the half of it. I just know that there is a severe problem about to devastate the western world. I don't know when. I just recognize the signs of the times. Westerners are gluttonous, lazy, and self absorbed. It won't be long now. Not long at all.

You're wasting your time. Keep bleating in the wind, no one will take a blind bit of notice of you. If you are so passionate about politics why haven't you become a politician. Is it perhaps because your rhetoric appeals to so few - I wonder why?

>even though health has improved a lot lately, throughout the world, why are more # of vaccinations recommended for older students, and even adults, these days?

Please post the basis upon which you are able to substantiate your claim.

>> Did you get the answers you wanted?

Yes. Thanks for all the helpful input on vaccinations increase in the society.

After a very long thread anushahanna, thank you very much. I was pleased to help out. Thinkpads_User

>>Can you clarify if you are asking about an increase in vaccinations or an increase in recommendations for vaccinations?

both; they co-relate, don't they?

Even though closed, I should point out that the relationship is questionable. Recommendations for vaccinations may rise when the number of people getting vaccinated falls. There have been a number of cases where drops in vaccinations have begun to reach dangerously low levels.

The whooping cough (pertussis) outbreaks in multiple areas across the USA in recent months may be the best current example.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/16352.php

Perceived problems with flu vaccines, fears of a relationships with autism, mistrust of government, those and other factors have been leading more people to avoid what was an almost automatic action just a decade ago.

So, I wanted to be certain about what your question actually was. I'm not sure at all that there has been a rise in vaccinations; I've had the impression that the rate has actually been falling in the USA at least. But in contrast, recommendations have indeed seemed to be rising, perhaps as a direct consequence of the same causes that have put more people off of them.

Tom