UK Gov to Start Installing Cameras In Private Homes

[Richie Rich]

If this isn't the biggest intrusion of privacy I've ever heard of.

Just wait Timm. Our own President is now in violation of the Privacy Act' date=' which prohibits any federal agency from maintaining records on individuals exercising their right to free speech. There is no stopping it, because he is the Pres., and he is not backing down. [i']"The White House strategy of turning supporters into snitches when they see "fishy" information about the health care debate may run afoul of the law, legal experts say."The White House is in bit of a conundrum because of this privacy statute that prohibits the White House from collecting data and storing it on people who disagree with it," Judge Andrew Napolitano, a FOX News analyst, said Friday. "There's also a statute that requires the White House to retain all communications that it receives. It can't try to rewrite history by pretending it didn't receive anything," he said."If the White House deletes anything, it violates one statute. If the White House collects data on the free speech, it violates another statute."Napolitano was referring to the Privacy Act of 1974, which was passed after the Nixon administration used federal agencies to illegally investigate individuals for political purposes. Enacted after Richard Nixon's resignation in the Watergate scandal.The White House has been under fire since it posted a blog on Tuesday that asked supporters to e-mail any "fishy" information seen on the Web or received electronically to flag@whitehouse.gov."I hope I get reported, as I will consider it a badge of honor. By the way, I reported this site:http://www.healthreform.gov/,as it seemed fishy. Actually it's a load of crap! I asked them to look into it, so they could stop the misinformation. Thanks !

[Frey]

And that's just the begining. If this "reform" is passed, it will be far more intrusive than that.

[Frey]

Younger Americans seem to be taught now mainly through teachers it seems' date=' that socialism is good. You can have the Government take care of you, and you really don't need to do anything. Younger Americans are starting to learn your rewarded for being lazy. And they are rewarded for being lazy.I know of no country that is flourishing, and is great that is socialist.Why go in that direction??[/quote']QFT. I've never seen anything like this. I live on Martha's Vineyard (where Yobama is going to vacation later this month) and 90% of the people are walking around like zombies with their Obama t-shirtss, hats, pins, tote bags, etc. There's even Obama trading cards for sale. Getting back to education, my local k-8 grade school celebrates UN Day every year! On UN Day, the whole school gathers around the flagpole, they lower the American flag and put the UN flag underneath it and raise both up. Then the "Rights of the child" are read aloud and for extra indocrination, we sang "We Are The World" and the Coca-Cola song "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing..." How I never became a commie is a miracle!

[Richie Rich]

... the whole school gathers around the flagpole' date=' they lower the American flag and put the UN flag underneath it and raise both up. Then the "Rights of the child" are read aloud and for extra indocrination, we sang "We Are The World" and the Coca-Cola song "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing..." How I never became a commie is a miracle! [/quote']Are you serious? They had you sing those songs as a little kid?Wow - talk about indoctrinating the next generation of socialists. I think I'm beginning to see how we got this current Pres. - brainwashed people indoctrinated since the cradle. From just one generation before you, kids would be singing the national anthem and "God Bless America".

[Frey]

Are you serious? They had you sing those songs as a little kid?Wow - talk about indoctrinating the next generation of socialists. I think I'm beginning to see how we got this current Pres. - brainwashed people indoctrinated since the cradle. From just one generation before you' date=' kids would be singing the national anthem and "God Bless America".[/quote']Yep. I even found a letter to the editor from my local paper about the annual "celebration." When you click on the link, scroll down and look for a letter titled "Honoring Our Differences" They now sing "Peace in Twelve Languages" too :rolleyes:http://www.mvtimes.com/news/2006/11/09/letters_to_the_editor.php

[agent 47]

The problem with this discussion on socialism is that people have become so lazy and so ignorant, they could care less or are are to dumb or are so simple minded they care less or ignore the direction this country is taking, Bill Maher was right about one thing: Americans are pretty much idiots, just not in the way he's thinking of. (Although, look who's talking Mr. Maher!)We've seen all the evidence we need, Obama hung out at a church where the reverend cursed America for years, his wife said she wasn't proud of America until Obama came along, he has put in office quite a few far left blowhards, even one who said we should sterilize drinking water to cut down the population, yet we still see people flock in drove to support everything Obama does.Younger Americans? At least they will hopefully be the last of them, the Mayans say the world will end in 2012, so no worries, they are all worm chum.

[Tommy Vercetti]

socialism? Laughable. the real damage was done by the fascist administration over the past 8 yearsFrank Zappa once said the biggest threat to America was moving the country towards a fascist theocracy, and boy was he ever right.

[Papa Legba]

I am sick of everything at the moment... I am sick of MPs fiddling their expenses and getting away with it... I am sick of people who contribute nothing to anyone getting what they want handed to them on a plate... and I am sick of those who are genuinely in need getting shafted hand over fist!

Good speech Morgana. You should get into politics (assuming you aren't involved in politics already) :thumbsup:Having said that a friend of mine on Facebook, in response to the "politics?" question on her profile answered "Poli means 'many', and tics means 'blood sucking creatures'"

[COOPER&BURNETT]

so you guys are presumably part of the 24% that approved of the job George W. Dumbass didObama can't destroy America. His predecessor did that for him.

Not me man!He and the "republicans" who were in office were phony conservatives. They do NOT stand for what I believe. They set the stage, now the current administration is taking it to a mega extreme left leaning view. Were in deeper debt now than we have ever been after Obama being in office (at the time) less than three months. (I thought everyone cursed Bush for HIS spending, Obamas already outspent the Bush administration, and wants to add more thatn a trillion more to the deficit...what if Bush would have done this?) Now we owe communist China.Where's Cindy Sheehan and all the anti war protesters now that Obama sent 20,000 people to war in Afganistan?Did I like Bush and his phony conservative views and his phony conservative staff?ABSOLUTELY NOT!!I'm a TRUE FISCAL CONSERVATIVE (like Ronald Reagan) When Employment was up, inflation was down, this nation and military was strong. When gas was $10 a barrel ( It's currently $70.93 a barrel) after the Carter administration has a huge gas shortage and high prices due to high taxes (Reagan knew not to tax the oil companies, and to drill on our own soil) and everyone felt PROUD to be an American, and wore Amercian flag pins and clothes and flew the flag.

[agent 47]

socialism? Laughable. the real damage was done by the fascist administration over the past 8 yearsFrank Zappa once said the biggest threat to America was moving the country towards a fascist theocracy' date=' and boy was he ever right.[/quote']What the hell did anybody expect?! He was a rich kid, he was incompetent, he botched the War On Terror, he spent money like a yuppie wife in a JC Penneys super sale and he got it into his head that we can save those people in the middle east, which is about as possible as a good Polly Shore movie being made.Obama is no better, getting up ther blaming the pevious administration for everything yet keep doing the same stuff, he said he would cut spending, he continues our governmental trend of spending until we are broke and in a recession.The corruption of our government isn't a party thing, it's a money thing, we have ignorant, corporate backed men running our country who have pure ignorance of the Working Class's well being, we believe Bush was a conservative? Conservative means to conserve, not spend, Bush is a conservative as much as Saddam was Ghandi, way off!I've about had it with the stupidity, our previous administration sucked, our new one sucks, we will probably never see some average joe who gets up ther and actually does something that doesn't help a corporation or push some stupid agenda that spends so much money our children and grandchildren will have to pay it off, why? Because he's not rich and backed by GE and rich left wing blowhards.This is harsh, but there is a special place in hell for all of them for what they've done, I hope they enjoy sulfer martinis, they will get free refills for eternity were they are going.

[Tommy Vercetti]

Americans are pretty much idiots, just not in the way he's thinking of. (Although, look who's talking Mr. Maher!)Yep. no matter what your affiliation is one thing that can be agreed upon is the fact that Maher's a jerkoff

[Frey]

Obamas already outspent the Bush administration, and wants to add more thatn a trillion more to the deficit...what if Bush would have done this?) Now we owe communist China.Where's Cindy Sheehan and all the anti war protesters now that Obama sent 20,000 people to war in Afganistan?Did I like Bush and his phony conservative views and his phony conservative staff?ABSOLUTELY NOT!!I'm a TRUE FISCAL CONSERVATIVE (like Ronald Reagan) When Employment was up, inflation was down, this nation and military was strong. When gas was $10 a barrel ( It's currently $70.93 a barrel) after the Carter administration has a huge gas shortage and high prices due to high taxes (Reagan knew not to tax the oil companies, and to drill on our own soil) and everyone felt PROUD to be an American, and wore Amercian flag pins and clothes and flew the flag.

I couldn't have said it better myself, Coop! W was NOT a conservative. As for Obama's spending, he's actually out-spent EVERY President in our nation's history COMBINED. That's without adding Obamacare.Also, how come I don't see anything on the news about soilders in Iraq dying? There used to be a daily body count, but now that Obama is President, I guess none of our brave men and women die in combat.

[Guest neworder]

I'm a TRUE FISCAL CONSERVATIVE (like Ronald Reagan)

I suppose I could say I am too, but from a Margaret Thatcher point of view, Maggie and Ronald were quite good pals I believe, he adopted similar initiatives as Thatcher for privatisation, although he knew when enough was enough and she didn't and went a bit insane in her 3rd term as PM; that said, I'm a great admirer of Thatcher. From what I'm hearing, Obama seems to be replicating what the twat Gordon Brown has done over here and spend **** loads and put us into huge debt. Debt got us into this crisis, with spending on credit...the solution...more debt by getting more loans out. I do wonder if a day will ever come when the Britain actually manages to be out of debt. Ridiculous.

[COOPER&BURNETT]

Americans are pretty much idiots' date=' just not in the way he's thinking of. (Although' date=' look who's talking Mr. Maher!)Yep. no matter what your affiliation is one thing that can be agreed upon is the fact that Maher's a jerkoff[/quote'']I agree with that!

[Morgana]

Good speech Morgana. You should get into politics (assuming you aren't involved in politics already) :thumbsup:Having said that a friend of mine on Facebook' date=' in response to the "politics?" question on her profile answered "Poli means 'many', and tics means 'blood sucking creatures'" [/quote']Thank you... and I totally agree with the description of politics!

[Chloe]

I'm afraid thats what you get with a socialist government.We are now going to pay more tax for having a nice view out of our houses, a garden, a conservatory & so it goes on. So the more we work the more successful we are the more the government takes to pay for the wasters, scroungers who claim state handouts in this godforsaken country.And don't get me started on the open door immigration policy....& our seeming inability to export criminals back to their country of origin because it may be against their human rights. Grrrrrrrr.....

[timm525]

Sounds like there is sooooo much incentive to work hard and get ahead.

[Shill]

Britain is almost a 'soviet socialist republic' these days - soon they won't let us go abroad or travel. Incidently, I read that traffic wardens in our country are considered more of an asset and payed more than our infantry soldiers in Afghanistan

[timm525]

Sadly it looks like the US is headed in the same direction. Only a matter of time unless the people wake up and vote smarter in the future.

[Papa Legba]

Although I agree that Britain has become too liberal, socialist, and is obsessed with Political correctness, speaking as someone who works in Housing and is involved in Benefits and Immigration issues, in some ways the political climate of the country is actually becoming more right wing. Over the past few years, benefit entitlements for Refugees, and Immigration rules and restrictions have slowly and steadily been becoming more tightened. Public housing has steadily been undergoing a process of privatisation since the Thatcher years. This has happened quite rapidly, to the point where 15 years ago, anyone could get a council flat within two weeks. Now you have to have an urgent need for rehousing before you can a council house or flat within five years. "Unemployment benefit" has changed to "Jobseekers allowance" (note the psychology of language), and most recently, Incapacity Benefit has changed to "Employment and support allowance", which effectively means that someone who previously could get away with never having to work again because they had a gammy leg, now has to attend an interview where they are asked "but what can you still do with a gammy leg?".You have to look at the context, back in the 70's, Britain was essentially a communist state. My dad couldn't afford to even buy a pair of boots for work due to almost 50% of his wages going to the Tax man. I think what we're witnessing across the globe is a steady move towards political neutrality. We have witnessed this within our own country. Back in the 80's, Labour was far left and the Conservatives were far right, with the liberal party in the middle. Now Labour and Conservatives are essentially identical, and both appear to be politically middle of the road, which is why the Liberal party has diminished in size and stature since the 80's. It's no longer there to provide a viable alternative to the two extremes. Globally, we are witnessing former Communist countries integrating Western values into their cultures (for example China and Russia), and traditionally more right wing countries such as the US (with the introduction of Obama) appearing to become more socialist.What I think is "outta whack" about my country is it's pathetically liberal approach to crime and punishment, the decay of the integrity of the family unit (which is why we have the highest teenage pregnancies in Europe), a "it's someone else's fault" culture reinforced by the media, and it's liberal approach to Immigration, which I view from a purely overcrowding point of view. We have vast countries like Australia that are tough on Immigration, yet has vast expanses of greenbelt land, yet our tiny island is practically sinking from the 60 million people all crawling on top of each other for space.Switzerland is the place to be. Now they know how to run a country!

[Richie Rich]

Newsweek, Time: Obamacare SucksNot exactly what they said, but both newsweeklys see a lot of problems, and are not impressed. Here's Robert Samuelson from Newsweek:http://www.newsweek.com/id/211247

One of the bewildering ironies of the health-care debate is that President Obama claims to be attacking the status quo when he's actually embracing it. Ever since Congress created Medicare and Medicaid in 1965, health politics has followed a simple logic: Expand benefits and talk about controlling costs. That's the status quo, and Obama faithfully adheres to it. While denouncing skyrocketing health spending, he would increase it by extending government health insurance to millions more Americans.Just why this approach is perennially popular is no secret. Health care is viewed as a "right." Promoting it seems "moral." Cost controls suggest dreaded "rationing." So there's a powerful bias toward expansion.History is unambiguous. Originally, Medicare covered only those 65 and older. In 1972, Congress added the disabled, now about 15 percent of beneficiaries, notes Diane Rowland of the Kaiser Family Foundation. It also covered dialysis for kidney failure. In 2003, Congress created a drug benefit. Along the way, other services (hospice care, mammograms) were added.Medicaid—the federal-state program for the poor—is the same story, says Rowland. Initially, it covered mainly people on welfare, as defined by states. Gradually, eligibility broadened. Now, children ages 6 to 18 in households under the poverty line ($22,050 for a family of four) get it. Congress also set higher limits (133 percent of the poverty line) for pregnant women and children under 6. In 1997, Congress created the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) to expand coverage further.Meanwhile, open-ended reimbursement by government and private insurance has ballooned health spending despite repeated pledges to "contain" costs. For example, health payments for individuals rose from less than 1 percent of federal spending in 1965 to 23 percent in 2008.Obama would perpetuate this system. No president has spoken more forcefully about the need to control costs. Failure, he's argued, would expand federal budget deficits, raise out-of-pocket health costs and squeeze take-home pay (more compensation would go to insurance). All true. But Obama's program would do little to reduce costs and would increase spending by expanding subsidized insurance. The House legislation would cut the number of uninsured by 37 million by 2018, estimates the Congressional Budget Office. The uninsured get care now; with insurance they'd get more."You'd be adding a third medical entitlement on top of Medicare and Medicaid," says James Capretta, a top official at the Office of Management and Budget from 2001 to 2004.Just imagine what the health-care debate would be like if it truly focused on controlling spending.For starters, we wouldn't be arguing about how to "pay for" the $1 trillion or so of costs over a decade of Obama's "reform." Congress wouldn't create new benefits until it had disciplined the old. We'd be debating how to trim the $10 trillion, as estimated by the CBO, that Medicare and Medicaid will spend over the next decade, without impairing Americans' health. We'd use Medicare as a vehicle of change. Accounting for more than one-fifth of all health spending, its costs per beneficiary, now about $12,000, rose at an average annual rate of 8.5 percent a year from 1970 to 2007. (True, that's lower than the private insurers' rate of 9.7 percent. But the gap may partly reflect cost-shifting to private payers. When Medicare restrains reimbursement rates, hospitals and doctors raise charges to private insurers.)Medicare is so big that shifts in its practices spread to the rest of the delivery system. But changing Medicare, and through it one-sixth of the U.S. economy, requires more than a few demonstration projects of "comparative outcomes" research or economic incentives. What's needed is a fundamental restructuring. Fee-for-service medicine—Medicare's dominant form of payment—is outmoded. The more doctors and hospitals do, the more they get paid. This promotes fragmentation and the overuse of services.We should move toward coordinated care networks that take responsibility for their members' medical needs in return for fixed annual payments (called "capitation"). One approach is through vouchers; Medicare recipients would receive a fixed amount and shop for networks with the lowest cost and highest quality. Alternatively, government could shift its reimbursement of hospitals and doctors to "capitation" payments. Limited dollars would, in theory, force improvements in efficiency and effective care.We're not having this debate. To engage it would require genuine presidential leadership, because, admittedly, these proposals would be hugely controversial. Medicare recipients—present and future—would feel threatened. Existing doctor-patient relationships might be disrupted. Spending limits would inspire fears of short-changed care. Hospitals, doctors and device manufacturers would object. Obama took a pass. He simply claims that his plan will do things it won't. What he's offering is an enlarged version of the status quo that, as he says, is already unsustainable.

[Richie Rich]

Time:http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1914973-2,00.html

There are two basic points about health-care reform that President Obama wants to convey. The first is that, as he put it in an ABC special in June, "the status quo is untenable." Our health-care system is rife with "skewed incentives." It gives us "a whole bunch of care" that "may not be making us healthier." It generates too many specialists and not enough primary-care physicians. It is "bankrupting families," "bankrupting businesses" and "bankrupting our government at the state and federal level. So we know things are going to have to change."Obama's second major point is that--to quote from the same broadcast--"if you are happy with your plan and you are happy with your doctor, then we don't want you to have to change ... So what we're saying is, If you are happy with your plan and your doctor, you stick with it."So the system is an unsustainable disaster, but you can keep your piece of it if you want. And the Democrats wonder why selling health-care reform to the public has been so hard?Again and again, their effort has brought us into a land of paradoxes. Public skepticism is warranted when the President promises to cut costs while simultaneously providing coverage to nearly 50 million uninsured people. It is even more warranted when his congressional allies seek to raise taxes to pay for all the new spending that this cost-cutting entails. We aren't talking about short-term spending either; this isn't a trillion-dollar investment in a new system that will ultimately save money. The Congressional Budget Office says the leading health-care-reform proposals will increase health-care spending and make the budget harder to balance in the long run. Yet saving money is the President's principal stated rationale for reform.Health-care reformers send out mixed messages on the uninsured as well. The moral imperative of improving their health care is what drives the passion of most liberal activists for reform. But when you read the liberal policy analysts, it quickly becomes clear that getting young and healthy people to pay more in premiums than they will spend on medical expenses is the point of forcing them to buy insurance. Which is it? In aggregate, are we trying to rescue the uninsured or bilk them? Is reform something we are doing for them or to them?The reformers' speed belies their words as well. If health-care reform is so critically important, as they keep insisting, why not take the time to get it right? Hard as it is to believe, at one point Obama was urging the House and Senate to pass legislation by three weeks after they began debating it.One final contradiction may lie beneath all the others. Democrats, particularly those involved in health policy, were scarred by President Clinton's failure to achieve reform in 1994. They are determined to avoid a similar debacle. So on every procedural question, they have done the reverse of what he did.Everything is different this time--everything, that is, except the plan. The Democrats are seeking mostly the same policies they sought 15 years ago: mandates, regulations on insurance companies, new government-managed markets. The major difference is that this time they also want a "public option," an insurance program open to everyone and run by the government. Obamacare is Clintoncare with a little more liberalism.The Democrats have apparently concluded that it was tactical blunders that sank Clinton. It wasn't. It was his plan. Like today's plans, it had too many conflicting goals.Stanley Greenberg, who was polling for Clinton back then, recently reminded Democrats that the insured public in the early '90s just could not be persuaded that the President was going to cut its costs by expanding coverage for others. No amount of clever strategizing is going to make the sales job easier this time. Instead, the President is in a series of double binds. The more he emphasizes how much has to change, for example, the more people are going to doubt his pledge that they can keep their doctor.Congress may yet pass the health legislation Obama wants. If it does, that success will reflect the Democrats' numbers in Congress and their determination, not public enthusiasm. This time there is no barrage of Harry and Louise ads to blame. It is health-care reform's own contradictions that are causing it to sink.

[COOPER&BURNETT]

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1914973-2,00.html

WOW!And this came from TIME magazine, and CNN!It's too expensive, and won't work. His poll numbers are dropping even more as people DON'T like his health care reform. Every time a new poll comes out, his poll drops more. It's a change all right. ....a bad change!

[Richie Rich]

WOW!And this came from TIME magazine' date=' and CNN![/quote']Exactly - that's why I wanted to post it. These news organizations studied this issue much more than I could - only to all draw the same conclusion - that it just can't work. How can you give free health insurance to 50 million uninsured people and also reduce costs. Will taxes for working people have to go up 5%, or 10%, or 50%? No one knows. And these are news groups that are mostly liberal making these statements.

[COOPER&BURNETT]

Exactly - that's why I wanted to post it. These news organizations studied this issue much more than I could - only to all draw the same conclusion - that it just can't work. How can you give free health insurance to 50 million uninsured people and also reduce costs. Will taxes for working people have to go up 5%' date=' or 10%, or 50%? No one knows. And these are news groups that are mostly liberal making these statements.[/quote']Exactly.Nice find Richie Rich.