On Wed, 15 Feb 2006 17:01:49 +0000 (GMT), "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:

In article ,
Andy Hall wrote:
In the absence of unlimited resources, what's best for *the* patient of
the doctor/dentist/whatever at any one time might not be best for
patients in general. That's where economics and politics come in. There
isn't, and never could be, enough money to give the best treatment to
every patient.

Quite. Which is why the state should not be involved in healthcare.

And you *seriously* think a private insurance company would pay out for
any treatment no matter how expensive?

Of course if you pay direct you can the very best that money can buy.
Would ne nice to be in that position...


To be more specific, I don't think that the state should be involved
in the *delivery* of healthcare - just organising the funding on a low
admin cost basis.


--

..andy

Andy Hall wrote:
On Tue, 14 Feb 2006 10:42:11 +0000, Mike Clarke
wrote:

I wonder how long it'll be before council bean counters start trying to
discourage people from composting their own waste.

Already beginning to happen here in Cambs. Big plans for the future
include using MBT to produce a fuel for the local cement works; of
course if we recycle all we could then the fuel wouldn't actually
burn:-/ See http://www.frontofpipe.net/ for a view on this.

Right now some are offering green waste collection for a price. If
they make that low enough, many people won't bother with taking it to
the tip. I suspect in any case that the cost in terms of CO2 etc. to
do that exceeeds recycling benefit.

Going to the tip is fine for councils: that's included in their brownie
points. Saving even more energy by the 3 Rs, or home composting, is
becoming anathema. There are some very interesting local(-ish) schemes
(in Suffolk) offering a green waste collection for a price whichis then
turned into compost for sale and employ various categories of
otherwise-unemployable people. Sadly, council politics are likely to put
these out of business in the medium term.

In regard to the rest, the rule of thumb is that as long as it is a
way to employ more jobsworths (visions of Derek Guyler with a
clipboard going door to door) then it's a winner.

You don't need to be nearly that cynical to be led to despair over waste
management here...:-(

Douglas de Lacey

Dave Liquorice wrote:

You can have a say at any point, not just elections. These days public
consultation is fairly common, particularly on major topics. You just
need to find out about them, you know down in the basement with the
stairs missing behind the locked door with "Beware of the Tiger" written
on it. B-)

I thought it was a leopard? Anyway, once you have battled past that yes,
you can fill in a form which asks "Are you in favour of your Council
emplying a sexy new way of improving your life-quality? (YES/NO)", when
the issue is actually whether they should increas recycling (=NO) or
generate carcinogens by burning waste in a huge new incinerator (=YES).
That's democracy.

Douglas de Lacey

On Mon, 20 Feb 2006 14:32:40 +0000, Douglas de Lacey wrote:

You just need to find out about them, you know down in the basement
with the stairs missing behind the locked door with "Beware of the
Tiger" written on it. B-)

I thought it was a leopard?

Correct:

http://www.kafejo.com/iq/mensa/picsinfo.htm

I like tigers though. They, and polar bears, are about the only animal
that sees homosapiens as prey. Yes, others will attack and possibly kill
you but generally don't set out to hunt you.

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail