This week’s open thread.
Reminder: The movie discussion for next Monday will be Doubt. I will put up the thread over the weekend when people have more time. Meryl Streep is excellent in the film.
43 Thoughts to “Open Thread 3/17/10”
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Blogroll
- 9500Liberty
- Bacons' Rebellion Blogspot
- Bearing Drift
- Blue Virginia
- Citizen Tom
- Counts of Monte Cristo. The
- Derecho, The
- Dixie Pig, The
- My Side of the Fence
- My Star Journey
- NARAL Pro-Choice VA Blog
- New Dominion Project
- Nova Common Sense
- NovaTownHall Blog
- One Libertarians's Point of View by Al Alborn
- Pete Candland's Blog
- Potomac Local
- Prince William Muckraker
- PW Conservation Alliance
- PWC Moms
- PWCPolitics.com
- PWCPolitics.com
- Red NoVA
- Shad Plank, The
- She the People
- State of NoVA, the
- The Jeffersoniad
- Townhall
- VEA Daily Reports
- VivianPaige
- WDGolden.com
- You, Me and the Lamp Post
Thread, thread, thread… So… why don’t we ever have an open needle? …so we can get to the “point”?
Here is an interesting study for discussion. Does going green make you mean? I used my green bags at the grocery store today so is that why I sped on the way home?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/15/green-consumers-more-likely-steal
“When Al Gore was caught running up huge energy bills at home at the same time as lecturing on the need to save electricity, it turns out that he was only reverting to “green” type.
According to a study, when people feel they have been morally virtuous by saving the planet through their purchases of organic baby food, for example, it leads to the “licensing [of] selfish and morally questionable behaviour”, otherwise known as “moral balancing” or “compensatory ethics”.
Do Green Products Make Us Better People is published in the latest edition of the journal Psychological Science. Its authors, Canadian psychologists Nina Mazar and Chen-Bo Zhong, argue that people who wear what they call the “halo of green consumerism” are less likely to be kind to others, and more likely to cheat and steal. “Virtuous acts can license subsequent asocial and unethical behaviours,” they write.
The pair found that those in their study who bought green products appeared less willing to share with others a set amount of money than those who bought conventional products. When the green consumers were given the chance to boost their money by cheating on a computer game and then given the opportunity to lie about it – in other words, steal – they did, while the conventional consumers did not. Later, in an honour system in which participants were asked to take money from an envelope to pay themselves their spoils, the greens were six times more likely to steal than the conventionals.
Mazar and Zhong said their study showed that just as exposure to pictures of exclusive restaurants can improve table manners but may not lead to an overall improvement in behaviour, “green products do not necessarily make for better people”. They added that one motivation for carrying out the study was that, despite the “stream of research focusing on identifying the ‘green consumer'”, there was a lack of understanding into “how green consumption fits into people’s global sense of responsibility and morality and [how it] affects behaviours outside the consumption domain”.
The pair said their findings surprised them, having thought that just as “exposure to the Apple logo increased creativity”, according to a recent study, “given that green products are manifestations of high ethical standards and humanitarian considerations, mere exposure” to them would “activate norms of social responsibility and ethical conduct”.
Dieter Frey, a social psychologist at the University of Munich, said the findings fitted patterns of human behaviour. “At the moment in which you have proven your credentials in a particular area, you tend to allow yourself to stray elsewhere,” he said.”
Mark Meckler and Mary Beth Martin, the co-founders of the Tea Party Patriots, asked me if I have ever been to a tea party. I haven’t. After thinking about it, I would like to attend one. Does anyone know when and where the Prince William County Tea Party meets? If Mark and Mary Beth are any indication, there are some nice folks “over there” and I would like to meet them.
Al, you sound like an exchange student. 😉
No, but if I heard of one, I will let you know. Maybe Wolverine knows?
Anon, I am going to have to tackle that one tomorrow. I am 2 hours behind with Criminal Minds.
“When will we get back to that system of six hour’s work in the school
room and an assignment of lessons to be prepared at home? Enough
new fangled fads! We need more arithmetic and spelling and fewer
paper flowers, more geography and fewer meteorlogical fancies, more
history and fewer devices for entertainment”.
Manassas Democrat (January 25, 1907)
What on earth were they talking about then?, PR?
“Discipline is the greatest responsibility now resting upon the teacher,
because of the woeful neglect in the average home”.
Manassas Democrat ( September 25, 1915)
So really those of us who sit around an pine for the good old days back when we were kids and education was REAL, had it said about us too?
Too funny. I know I have read that giving a kid an eraser was thought to be copping out and being easy on them…like a cheat sheet of sorts. Everything is relative.
The Manasssas Democrat would roll over in its collective grave today if it walked into any school in Prince William County or Manassas City.
Anon, that is an interesting study. Moral balancing? Probably. Internal justification?
I have seen meaness in friends who have become environmentally ‘active’ also. Somehow people who recycle when they don’t have to take on this tone of moral superiority.
I can remember the controversy over using calculators in school. I’m sure these days they are commonplace. In college, in some classes we still were made to use slide rules, as you still had to think about things like decimal places and such in the use of a slide rule. It depended on the professor – and it was only in a few classes – but some professors at that time still did not like the use of calculators. Obviously, slide rules are a thing of the past, although I still have one somewhere (probably still packed in a box from moving).
I remember second semester of Freshman English. The professor (really not a full professor but some idiot graduate student) did not allow us to use the eraseable typewriter paper for writing our essays (they had to be typed – and this was in 1977 so PC’s had not yet be invented). So we had to type out our essays, and he didn’t want us using eraseable paper or even using white-out. I remember spending long hours retyping papers trying to not make any typing mistakes. Talk about a really dumb rule, and I don’t know what it’s purpose was other than to make one go crazy trying to type a full page of paper without any mistakes! I could see if it was a typing class, but it wasn’t – it was Freshman English! I had a manual typewriter – and I just remember it not being much fun. I bet these days the professors are fine with using word processors/computers. In fact, I wish I had a word processing program like Microsoft Word – that will even find some grammatical errors – as my grammar is definitely very poor – as to how I construct sentences.
Anona, I wonder if the researchers would find the same “meanness” in any segment of society that thought it had the “higher moral ground” whether that segment claimed it through a religious perspective, a political one, an educational level, etc.
When my older brother graduated from Georgia Tech in 1968,
students were still using slide rules. He still has it, along with
its “holster”. Today they are almost museum pieces.
Reading old papers show how much has changed and how
some has not – children of any period have often not “measured
up to the good old days” of previous generations. The
world is always “going to hell in a handbasket”.
“There has been much discussion the past year or so as to the
propriety of certain ‘freak’ dances and some of the new styles of
ladies’ dresses. The dances have been prohibited in many places
and some women have been arrested for the display they have made
of themselves on the public highway…. The ‘Tango’ is no dance at
all and should not be permitted … it must have been been invented
by someone who wished to see how far public sentiment could
be pushed …. The extreme in split skirts is only worn for advertising
purposes and deserves a prison sentence instead of a fine… ”
Manassas Democrat (July 24, 1913)
How funny! re tango!
Funny how long that road to hell in a handbucket it. we still haven’t gotten there yet.
GR, that just sounds cruel to me. My typing skills are horrible. I could never run a blog if I couldn’t get into the back room to correct all my typos!
I didn’t have the money in college to have my papers typed for me. If I couldn’t use erasable paper or white out I would have been sunk.
M-h, I had one prof that declared “no typos and no white out and only onion skin”. I don’t know whether he wanted us to rise to the standards needed for submission of an article for publication or whether he was just a sadist. I scrimped and paid a typist.
PR, the old Manassas newspapers (microfiche) are indeed interesting. About twenty years ago, I spent several days reading articles pertaining to a particular area of the county. We supposedly had a platinum mine in the vicinity of Sinclair Mill Road, if I remember correctly.
One of our contributors (Bear) used to live on Sinclair Mill Road. He will be mighty disappointed to learn he missed out on that platinum mine. Whatever became of it?
I think that prof must have been a saddist. I could sure get through college easier nowadays with computers with word processing and calculators that do everything.
Sadly, the only local place to read the old papers is on microfiche at
the Bull Run Library (copies are also stored in Richmond) and the
machines, plus some of the microfiche, are in a sad state. Started
to complain, but am aware of the severe budget challenge the
PWC Library system faces. Plus, I’ve observed their use is occasional
compared to the large demand for computer use time.
But newspapers have been called “the first rough draft of history”
and tell us a great deal about our community during different decades.
(Will people be able to read these blogs a hundred years
from now? Might they see our present struggles over immigration
or gay/lesbian issues the way we look at voting rights for women,
prohibition and rigid racial segregation?)
M-H, Go ahead and look for that mine. I’m after the hidden box of gold
on Bull Run Mountain!
And in so many ways we are worlds apart. We are worlds apart from when you and I were children, PR. I am light-years from when I first moved to Manassas. Time flies, fun or not.
Why can’t the micro-fiche be put onto something on the computer? Is there such an product? I never knew the difference in microfeche and microfilm. If we can put men on the moon we can put microfeche onto a computer!
It must be nice for sure. Really, I could get by fine with a slide rule – that didn’t bother me. Having to type those English papers on my cheap manual typewriter – and not even being able to use eraseable typing paper or whiteout – now that was indeed extreme torture. I remember many a wasted day where I must have spent 4 or 5 hours just trying to get one page typewritten without errors. Sometimes I just gave up, and figured let him mark me off for some silly typo – that I would otherwise have corrected.
I sure wish they had invented word processors by the time I was in college – it would have made Freshman English so much easier for me! That English professor (really a grad student) was an idiot! He had a unique grading scale – that he said “you engineers would appreciate”! He gave out numeric scores on papers. Anyway, to get an A in the class your average of your scores had to be 100. An A- was 97-99. A B+ was 94-96, a B was 90-93, a B- was 87-89, etc. He claimed we (the engineers) would appreciate how “precise” that grading scheme was! I always said “we appreciated how STUPID it was”! Needless to say – I averaged a 79 in there and got a C-. My worst grade in college! It really dragged down my Freshman GPA as a result.
I’m sure that stuff can definitely be scanned into a computer – but it would take money and time – money which of course is tight right now. One would think that’s definitely been done many places though. I am sure there’s automated ways to scan microfilm and turn it into PDF files or some such thing. It certainly wouldn’t be very hard to do – from a technology point of view. I think it’s a matter of cost and time, more than anything else.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2011367936_walgreens18m.html
Effective April 16, Walgreens drugstores across the state won’t take any new Medicaid patients, saying that filling their prescriptions is a money-losing proposition — the latest development in an ongoing dispute over Medicaid reimbursement.
After all the lawsuits over HCR are finalized (Idaho passed a law requiring the AG to sue and Virginia’s AG mentioned his intention could the end game be played out at the point of service? If doctors and other healthcare providers simply choose to say; we don’t except govt health insurance could they do it and would it work?
And remember that states distribute medicaid money so that is the fault of the state, not the feds.
I find this isn’t necessarily the case with enviros, but rather profoundly demonstrative with the Religious.
Marinm, a friend of mine whose niece and husband are physicians in Washington state say that it will be darn near impossible to get a primary care doc if you’re older than 62 – best to get there and establish a relationship with the doc before turning that age.
M-h, I’ll try to find my notes about the mine. There used to be several fords along the river before the Lake jackson dam was built. It was near one of the fords. I think I saw an advertisement for the mine – don’t know if it was productive or just one of those recreational activities – come out and pan for fun and the possibility of becoming rich.
Am I the only one that didn’t know the speed limit in Virginia is going up to 70 mph? Unfortunately, the Nova speed limits will stay stuck at 55. (Not that you can do 55 on I-66 except in the middle of the night.)
http://hamptonroads.com/2010/02/virginia-senate-approves-bill-raise-speed-limit-70-mph
Marinm highlights a real issue. Insurance is worth little if doctors and
apparently now, even pharmacies won’t accept it as a money-losing
deal. Having Medicare is like being a second class citizen and Medicaid,
especially if it is greatly expanded, is even worse. That
is a huge issue Obamacare ignores. Of course, the GOP ignores the
fact that O-Care or not – millions of people without insurance still
get sick and injured. Who pays? Right now America’s public hospitals
are headed towards bankruptcy over this. Neither party offers
a coherent “real world” plan.
Good info, Censored. I’m not yet to my mid-30s so I have some time to go. 🙂
My topic should be clarified as; if medicaid is a government program (regardless of State or Fed erale) and a healthcare provider is able to opt out and simply refuse to treat those persons (for non-emergency issues) could they simply post a sign and say your insurance is not accepted here?
Could that be the last line drawn for those healthcare providers that think it’s a bad idea? Accept only commercial and not government insurance? How would that impact the providers that think it was a good idea and would they think so afterwards with the load being so uneven?
We have a doctor that refuses insurance – he doesn’t like dealing with the increased backroom load (cost/manpower/etc.) for insurance claims and deals strictly as a cash business. Because I want to remain a customer of course I have to bring cash so I signed up for a HSA (health spending account) to reduce my pre-tax income and have available cash to use for his services – and I use it for other things (I wish ammo was considered a health expense).
So, I’m able to keep him around as a doctor, he doesn’t have to deal with BCBS or the government and we both make out on this. As a bonus I pay less now in federal taxes.
Now if only I could talk him into taking a goat, a chicken, or my comedic routine in exchange so I didn’t even have to spend cashy money. 🙂
Poor Richard, my husband heard a radio program where physicians had been asked which form of healthcare they preferred. They answered overwhelmingly “a single payer system”. The radio host asked his callers to ask their docs and the replies were the same – regardless of the caller’s political affiliation. My husband then asked his two docs the question and got the same answer. I wonder if costs would be lower. Are doc’s spending too much “quality time” filling out forms rather than treating patients? Are they dissatisfied with the reimbursement from insurance companies? What drives their opinions?
Sure, a lot of the doctors would like a single payer system – there’s only one set of forms to fill out, one insurer to deal with, etc. What might be great for the doctors might not be so great for some of the patients.
In that scenario, my excellent health insurance plan from my employer would disappear. Despite prescriptions and routine doctor appointments, in the past few years I’ve had ZERO out-of-pocket costs. And my premium payments out of my paycheck are no higher than they were with other employers where I did incur somewhat significant out-of-pocket costs, especially on prescriptions. My point is, healthcare reform were to take away my choice of this insurance plan (and I’m not saying it will – but I’m saying it might) I would not be happy – not happy at all. A single payer system implies no choice, and I like to have choices. The physicians, as long as they get paid – sure they’d be very happy to have a single payer system – only one insurer to deal with. What physician wouldn’t?
BRAVO…couldn’t have said it better myself.
Marin, we both make out on this – you only make out on this as long as you stay healthy. I do not need insurance for a sinus infection or for an ear infection.
If you know anyone who has suffered a real illness, you would surely know that you would not be making out on this setup.
FYI – Just received the latest edition of the Manassas Observor,
a new twice a month newspaper that is a worthwhile read for
local news and features. On the front page is an article
headlined “Nokesville director bringing Hollywood to
Old Town Manassas”. Sail Away Productions’ website proudly
claims it is the premier film studio in Nokeville and it is doing a
musical feature called “Bright Lights and Promises” in Manassas
and they are looking for more extras. In the past SAP has done
several award winning horror movies – maybe their plan is to
finish the musical and head down to the budget hearings at
City Hall – scary stuff.
(The Big Manassas Movie was My Son John (1952) that was
filmed, in part, near the Old Town PO and featured Helen Hayes,
Van Heflin and Robert Walker – but was widely reviewed as
comically awful. It was the story of a mother who discovered her son
was a closet —communist).
Just some levity in case you haven’t seen this–
Some of the artists of the 60’s are revising their hits with new lyrics to accommodate aging baby boomers who can remember doing the “Limbo” as if it were yesterday .
They include:
Bobby Darin —Splish, Splash, I Was Havin’ A Flash
Herman’s Hermits —Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got A Lovely Walker
The Bee Gees — -How Can You Mend A Broken Hip?
Roberta Flack—The First Time Ever I Forgot Your Face
Johnny Nash —I Can’t See Clearly Now.
Paul Simon— Fifty Ways To Lose Your Liver
Procol Harem— A Whiter Shade Of Hair
Leo Sayer —You Make Me Feel Like Napping
The Temptations —Papa’s Got A Kidney Stone
Abba—Denture Queen
“You haven’t seen my teeth have you Wilma?
Tony Orlando — Knock 3 Times On The Ceiling
If You Hear Me Fall
Helen Reddy —I Am Woman, Hear Me Snore
Leslie Gore—It’s My Procedure, And I’ll Cry If I Want To
And Last but NOT least…
Willie Nelson —On the Commode Again
Just for you, Wolfie and all of us ancients.
Thanks, Rez. After the day I just had, I needed that laugh….
My favorite is Fifty Ways to lose your Liver 😉
(in keeping with the topic)
I thought the single payer plan was just for the uninsured, not for the insured?
Don, you are welcome. Actually, I like “On the Commode Again”. I can hum it in my mind. 🙂
The way I read it (and maybe I misinterpreted what someone wrote) they were saying the doctors were in favor of a single payer plan for all insured. Maybe I’m misinterpreting something though. I hope I am, actually – and that would just be for those currently uninsured. That would be much more acceptable to me personally. However, even then, I read the theory that some companies might opt to not offer insurance as it would be cheaper for them to pay something to the federal gov’t, and then all their employees would essentially be forced into the gov’t plan. Although, I wouldn’t expect my company to do something like that.
However, the idea of a single payer plan for all insured, well that’s just not good, if you ask me. Maybe good for the doctors, but not good for the patients. Or at least not good for many patients, I think.
I meant to also say, when you take out competition and alternatives, and don’t give people choices, that’s bad. That to me is what a single payer plan represents, if indeed the idea is the doctors would like it for all insured. And I see how they would – it would be just one set of paperwork to fill out no matter who the patient is, and one place to deal with. It probably would save a lot of their time. But I see bad things too, as in my case, I have the choice of several insurance plans from my employer. Each year, if I so choose, I could switch insurance plans. Now, I haven’t done that, or felt the need to, but it’s nice to know the option is there.
I like that one too – given that I just turned 50 almost a year ago.
@Rez
Thanks for posting that – those were all really funny (speaking as a fellow aging baby boomer).