Political discussions and other rants about useless things like culture

We have the biggest guns. Something like more than $1.4 trillion plus spent on keeping them big, with the next biggest guns only getting $100 billion (well, $200 billion really, China lies).

Our giant gun-penis-thing is basically so big we should rule the world. FOREVER.

 

You're both idiots, like your country. We might have smaller guns that we buy from you with loans, but we have heart and brains and intestines, and we can take you out anytime. Even if we go bankrupt.


(doesn't that feel good?)

 

Having all those things does nothing but make you more appealing to zombies! You're going to need our guns! You're going to have to take out more loans, unless you wanna end up as zombie chow.

 

The only one here who has something to be proud of concerning guns is Daniel, since Costa Rica does not have guns at all and that's something you can be proud of.

 

WRONG! CR has plenty of guns, believe me. CR was the first country to legally disband its army, which I must admit is pretty cool. But the country has become increasingly violent, there's a violent death/crime every day here. Lots of guns here, lots and lots of them. Who needs an army when you have a bunch of robbers wielding AK-47s?

 

Hmm right. Seems it isn't as good as I thought after all. Still, I guess Costa Rica is the best country to live in when you're in Latin America.

 

In Central America, yes, but not in Latin America. In LA it'd be something like Chile, X (maybe Uruguay?), Argentina, Costa Rica, Panamá, etc. I'd say CR is 4th or 5th place.

 

It depends, really. Defiance is right, though. Chile, Argentina, Costa Rica, Panamá I hear is ok (if you move from the U.S. or Puerto Rico with a modest amount of saved up U.S. cash, I hear it goes a loooooooooooong way in Panamá). Puerto Rico used to be the best of the bunch and you'd get a lot of Mexican and Argentinian people moving there in the 80s and the late 90s / early 2000s, but PR right now is bordering pre-civil drug war Mexico. It's been getting pretty bad there. The DR has really high petty crime.

Cuba will be interesting when it opens up. I gather that, along with Chile, it's one of the safest places in Latin America (so long as you don't piss off the security services, as it has the least transparent government due to being a dictatorship).

 

I also heard that health care is pretty good in Cuba. If you look at the list of countries by life expectancy on Wikipedia you see that Cuba is on a 36th spot, shared with Denmark and the United States. Not quite bad, to be honest.

 

Gotta look at that qualitatively. In the U.S., the care itself available is without parallel but access to it is impossible for giant chunks of the population. Costs are fictitious and care is extremely expensive.

In Cuba, you'd be able to get care whenever you got sick, but there would be procedures and medication of certain types either in shortage or out of reach because of the government's finances and because of waiting lists.

 

True, but when you think about, the Cuban health care system is much better than the US'. What's worse, no access (US) or limited access (Cuba)? Plus, Cuba has some of the best doctors in the world.

 

I don't know if I agree or disagree. Maybe a little bit of both. The U.S. has the best doctors in the world. The overall balance of health care, quality of doctors (as in, they're at least as good as "American" doctors), availability of medicine and cost of this care is better in Western Europe. The PRACTICE of medicine and research is best in the United States, while cost and access is a travesty. But especially in states with a concentration of top specialists, like California and Pennsylvania, you have theoretically the best health care in the whole world.

I know from personal experience, I see one of the three best doctors in the entire world for my condition. It is somewhat expensive, although I have insurance. In Europe there's no one who is her equal (I was forced to check when I still hadn't found proper treatment). The philosophy of how they treat things like chronic pain disorders is simply more serious in the United States.

But part of public health is availability of care. Cuba, I think, proves that even lacking the top tier of technology and research (which they are capable of, but lack the money to develop those facilities and institutions in the same way as the U.S.), overall public health is better when everyone has it. The answer is simple: preventative care. There's no concept of that in the U.S. We can handle types of cancers that no one else can, but our population develops the disease at rates that demonstrate that we don't prevent its occurrence in the first place. So Cubans are healthier than Americans and live longer.

The American system is unbalanced more than anything. In the effort to make medicine profitable, to spur innovation, we've spawned unwanted ways of making it more expensive. The issue is complex. Americans also think, ideologically, that if you can't afford to fix yourself when you're sick, you weren't working hard enough in the first place. Or if you're too sick and it's too expensive to keep you alive, you should not be burdening everyone else. Very little public comprehension, or comprehension amongst policymakers, as to what makes the medical profession tick. If medicine weren't what it is right now in the U.S., I wouldn't have treatment. But it's also the reason my treatment is so expensive (and I think most Americans would consider my costs semi-reasonable).

I'd be fucked in Cuba. But therein lies America: it is the best place to be an individual, eh?

 

Brilliant post mate, and I completely agree with it. The US has the best doctors in the world, even if Cuba has some great ones too. (A lot of m.d. from Cuba do go to the US to study).

 

Damn o.o :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13251570

 

Damn, Osama dead! Most interesting in the opinion of the Gringos () of the forum. Brilliant political move, I guess.

 

Dead mass murderer. Everyone wins. Especially Obama come 2012 elections.

 

I guess that's what most people will think when voting. "He killed Osama, so I'll vote for him".

 

Yep, this will be very good for Obama indeed.

 

I just keep reading this and it makes my day everytime hahahahahaha. Yeah, all Gringos are idiots! Stop the imperialism!!! Hail Chávez!!!



--

I guess this means a landslide for Obama in 2012?