[geeks] Socialized medicine [was Re: nVidia 8800GT for Apple Mac Pro]

[Mike Meredith]

On Mon, 26 May 2008 16:05:19 +0300, Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:
> There are a lot of moslems in southeastern Europe. Bosnia/Serbia, the
> southern part of the former Soviet Union, etc was heavily populated
> by them.

Sure, but I'm not sure we see much immigration to the UK amongst them.
Certainly the most problematic immigrants seem to be a tiny minority of
the guests from India/Pakistan/middle-east/etc.

> I knew a many in the U.S. and have met a few here. You can't
> generalize, moslem sects range from spirtualistic vegetarians all the

Sure. Applies to just about every religion out there.

> Most of the world's moslems are not ethnicly Arabs and don't speak a
> word of Arabic. 

Actually most moslems are encourages to read Arabic at least.

> True, but the one bank to almost close in the U.K. failed because of
> bad investments in the U.S. housing market. It was "rescued", but as
> things go down, how will the rest both in the U.K. and the U.S. fare?

I watched the Northern Rock problems pretty closely. NR's problems
stemmed from being dependent on interbank credit for *new* business and
the lack of availability of that credit restricting their opportunity
to create new business. I don't think their problems were directly due
to the US housing market problems (frankly they weren't big enough to
invest there). They survived the media-fueled bank run as well as any
bank would ... sure they needed a loan to tide them over (any bank
would to cope with a run).

Given that it was "rescued" close to 6 months after the bank run, it
wasn't really in _that_ much trouble. Historically most banks cease
trading before a bank run finishes.

> The IRA was a joke. They were the worst terrorists in the world until
> they started to talk peace. Then the ones who did not want to give up

Your recollection of that period is at odds with mine.

The first task of any terrorist organisation is to survive, and the IRA
did that well enough being founded in the 1920s (it's history is
muddled with the IRB and confusion about whether the 1922- IRA was
directly related to the -1922 IRA). An 80-odd year lifetime would seem
to be an 'improvement' on most other terrorist groups.

Admittedly you could claim the post 1969 'provisional IRA' was not a
true continuation of the 'official IRA' but a more cynical person might
believe the 'split' was more a sneaky way of retiring better known
members of the IRA, and to keep the identities of new members more
secret.

Whilst some of their operations were farcical, they were in the
minority.

> went to the Arabs for training and came back. The premise for Patriot

The link to the PLO went back until at least the 1970s.

> When they came back and actually had ONE successfull terrorist attack
> (Omagh), 

Eh? I'm not sure what definition you're using for a successful
terrorist attack, but the ones that spring to mind are :-

* Brighton hotel bombing. They may not have gotten Thatcher, but it
  certainly shocked the country.
* The killing of Lord Mountbatten. Killing a member of the royal family
  is hardly an "unsuccessful" terrorist attack!
. 
* The 1971 Post Office tower bombing
* The 1972 Aldershot barracks bombing
* The 1972 "Bloody Friday" bombings; 22 bombs in Belfast on one day.
* The 1973 bombings of King's Cross and Euston stations.
* The 1974 M62 Coach bombing
* The 1974 bombing at the houses of Parliament.
* The 1974 Guilford pub bombing
* The 1974 Birmingham pub bombing
* The 1976 bombing of the ambassador to the Republic of Ireland
* The 1978 La Mon restaurant bombing.
* The 1982 Regents Park and Hyde Park bombings
* The 1983 Harrods bombing
* The 1987 Remembrance Day bombing
* The 1989 Deal Barracks bombing
* The 1990 London Stock Exchange bombing
* The 1992 London Bridge station bombing
* The 1992 Baltic Exchange Bombing
* The 1992 Manchester bombing (not the 1996 one!)
* The 1993 Warrington bombing
* The 1993 Bishopgate bombing
* The 1993 Newtownards bombing
* The 1993 Shankill Road bombing
* The 1996 South Quay bombing
* The 1996 Manchester bombing

It may not be as spectacular as some other terrorist gangs, but that's
partially because the IRA were (mostly) concerned to avoid mass
casualties ... most of their larger bombings had warnings given to
allow evacuations (for example the 1996 Manchester bombing could have
killed thousands seeing as most of the shopping 'mecca' of Manchester
was destroyed).

> the U.K. rolled over and played dead. Captitulation, total
> utter capitulation. The IRA got everything they wanted. 

a) The peace process was well underway before Omagh; the pIRA weren't
   involved and visited over 60 splinter republican terrorists to point
   out very pointedly that they were less than pleased.
b) The IRA didn't get what they wanted. The 6 counties are still not
   part of the Republic of Ireland, and the "brits" aren't out.

> Illegal immigrants don't pay taxes, don't pay for medical care (and

None of which has any impact on their ability to be free migrate to
whether the jobs are. Certainly illegal immigrants are a problem.

> Change is good, moslemization (ouch, bad word), radicalization (even

I think it's called "islamification" over here, but still a pretty
piss-poor word :)

> worse) is bad. At one time if you moved to England you had to fit in
> to the social system, follow English law, etc. My ancesestors did it

Most immigrants only integrate partially; their descendants do a better
job. 

> > [0]: For example Brick Lane in London which has always been a place
> > for immigrants.
> 
> Most of those were Indian. Up until recently Indians were considered

No actually I picked Brick Lane for a good reason. The first immigrants
to make their home there were the Huguenot refugees. They didn't
integrate at first ... partially because they wanted to go back, and
partially because existing textile manufacturers didn't like the
competition. Their descendants integrated.

> They wear the hoods because no one can identify them. 

Well the criminal ones do; I would guess that the ones queued up behind
me are essentially non-criminal and so just wearing the hoodies for
fashion reasons. 

-- 
Mike Meredith (http://zonky.org/)
  sigmonster: core dumped