Star Fleet Battles Open Community

"Note that I said "Minimize", not "Eliminate". The problem with off topic discussions is that by and large, they result in circular firing squad arguments and driving people away."

Ken: I realize you're a friend of SVC and therefore must remain diplomatic, but let's call a spade a spade here. The culture of a forum is shaped by its members, and by its moderation and administration policies. SFB is a community of adults (mostly 40+, I'd wager) who are being treated like children.

Circular arguments about politics or the environment do not drive people away from a game -- people can always just walk away from the argument. The ADB off-topic forum is a "safe-zone" for Republican wingnuts to vent their spleens while indulging in schadenfreude as SVC sticks it to the "liberal elites". A random internet gamer only has to read SVC's topic disclaimers to recognize the demographic he's targeting his games at.

Ultimately, I can't fault SVC for taking such a one-sided political stance in his off-topic moderation policies. Clearly he's weighed the benefits of preserving his bubble-world vs. the risk of driving away customers at the door, and he's determined it to be a worthwhile trade-off. But please, let's not pretend that off-topic discussion by its very nature is the culprit here.

The fact that SVC also censors game-related discussion is the real issue. Off-topic threads just happen to fall under ADB's larger moderation policy of manufacturing an illusion of consent by ridiculing and censoring people who disagree with SVC.

No need to explain Ken, I understand your position. Off-topic discussions can always become heated, but as long as moderators have a zero-tolerance policy against personal attacks and petty insults, outright flame-wars can be prevented. However, ADB seems more interested in seeing flame wars go in SVC's favor than actually preventing them.

HEY!!!!

I'm only irritating to stupid people. Seriously... I get along fine with people I disagree with as long as we disagree over conclusions reached from logical processes. I might not value the same things you value, and thus get to a different point... but really... you can't argue opinion. Its opinion. As long as someone ADMITS their opinion is opinion its cool with me.

I have no problem with unmoderated forums Paul. My complaint was with SVC's method of moderating his company forum. Generally I don't think companies want ugly flame-wars tarnishing their image. However, rather than implement a zero-tolerance policy against insults, SVC tacitly encouraged insults against people of whom he disapproved, meanwhile providing refuge for the bigots and idiots in his customer base.

I am a big Diplomacy fan so I am over at Redscape.com all the time. They have a politics board that is virtually unmoderated. It is also pretty free of flame-wars. It can get pretty heated at time but I don't think it has ever descended into total name calling asshatter.

The problem with "unrestricted flamewar" is that then you have people repeatedly emailing the company staff asking them to PLEASE ban "Carl Magnus Carson" NOW because he is OBVIOUSLY LYING and TELLING UNTRUTHS about our BRAVE SOLDIERS OVER SEAS!!!

It's probably easier to just cut discussions off immediately.

Also, I think that what we've established with years of internet discussion is that a great many people have absolutely no immunity to trolls. If you go with anything-goes, you end up with a forum that's nothing but people who never saw a bait they didn't rise to, and other people who are master baiters.

I checked out the real-world military thread (something I rarely do) and the last post I saw by Carl was concerning Poland. It was totally reasonable. Did he have later posts deleted?

And yeah, I'm gonna call him Hot Carl from now on. Because he's a hot guy and the action is always hot when he's around ;)

I think I must be a commie pinko bastard because I find I agree with Carl posts far more than anyone else on the board.

Possibly because neither of us grew up in the US where political views are so far skewed to the right its not funny.

Outside of the US Obama would be considered possibly moderately right wing, but most likely very much a centrist in the bulk of his views, yet in the US to many he's considered the worst kind of socialist since Marx.

Of course, the irony is lost on these folks when you look at how much spending increased under Reagan, Bush Sr and Bush Jr.

But we cant let facts get in the way.

BTW: I would much prefer a completely unmoderated forum over a moderated forum any day. People are free to say about me what they will. If they attack me rather than the content of my posts then that just shows them to be simpletons.

But in defence to Obama, 90% of what he's spending is because of what the previous administration did.

Bush never came close to balancing a budget. Neither did Bush Sr or Reagan. It took Clinton to do it, though even then it was with some shifty accounting.

So the idea that Obama could come along and not only fix all the damage Bush did, fix all the damage Wall St did, and fix all the things which were neglected over the previous 8 years, plus balance the budget in the first couple of years is pretty laughable.

That said, if the economy does pick up, unemployment decreases, business investment increases, etc... then he should certainly be judged from that point on.

The notion that Obama is increasing the national debt "because of what the previous administration did" is debatable. But let's say it's true. Wouldn't it be better to fix that and get on an even economic keel before we launch a trillion dollar healthcare reform, for instance? Before we expand welfare? Before we decide to make everyone pay for climate change?

The problems we have today have been building up for at least 30 years and both parties have done their part. They are mostly the result of 2 things. Lack of public servise and greed.

This one started during Bush 1 I think.

Health Care: When I was growing up the govenor of Iowa was Robert Ray. He was govenor for like 16 years. After leaving office he took a job as head of a not for profit health ins company. Bluecross/Blueshield. When my wife and I got married in 1982 we were only making $15,000 combined income. But we had good ins.
Even low wage jobs came with ins. Now because of changes to the law most companies, including Bluecross, have gone from mutual ins. (where any profits go back to policy holders in the form of lower premiems) to for profit capital stock companies. One Health ins. CEO made over 140 million dollars in bonuses last year. How many claims were denied to earn him that much?

I really would preffer if the government did not have to get involved.
But we now have a system where low wage employers let the government provide health care (medicaid) Middle men (Ins companies) take 30 % of what is spent on private healthcare. The government runs medicare on 3% BTW. I believe that those that provide healthcare should be well paid. Doctors, Nurses ect. But is making a profit on denying peoples claims morale or just greedy? Maybe any Health Ins. company should be required to be a Mutual Ins. company?

During the Clinton years.

Banking: In the 1930s banking regs went into place to force banks not to over leveage. I believe 8 to 1 was the rule. This was thrown out in the 90s and that plus the Feds low interest policy pretty much lead to last years near collapse.

Then Bush IIs part.

Bankrupcy: The laws now make it almost impossible to get chapter 7. I am not saying that people should not pay their bills. But having the possiblity out there helped keep credit card companies in check.

The Wars: I do not blame Bush for going to war. Congress voted on it and that is how it is done. My beaf is with cutting taxes (mostly on the upper 2%) during a war. And the use of very expensive for profit private armies like Blackwater. If Bush had followed the advise of Powell ( a general) instead of Rumsfeld (a businessman) I believe things would have gone much better overthere.

Just putting my 2 cents in,

Ron

Yhbt. Yhl. Hth hand!

90% is earmarked? So the trillion dollar stimulus(s), the trillion dollar healthcare reform, the trillion dollar cap and trade...all earmarked by the previoius administration? Heh.
No doubt you are partially correct, but don't overstate it.

Fraud is almost the entire issue as far as I'm concerned. Political, administrative, and recipient. You name the government program, and you'll see the same thing.

If it's done sensibly, for short periods of time, and doesn't become a habit. We've been running budget deficits since 1982. I think 27 years qualifies as a habit.

Every budget Reagan submitted to Congress was balanced. Every budget Congress passed was extensively modified. Please note that I'm not saying that I'd've agreed with the unmodified Reagan budget, or that I disagree with the additions made by Congress.

I am pointing out that you can't blame Reagan for the deficits in the '80s. That lies thoroughly with Congress.

There is now a CMB report indicating that Social Security will be running a deficit in 2010-2011, rather than 2013 as was previously projected. To get figures that don't show a deficit in 2012, the CMB is saying that social ecurity tax income will increase by 4.9%. This, to me, is dubious.

I suspect that by 2013-2014, debt services will consume all of Congress' discretionary funding, and that...will be an interesting time.

As to health insurance, there's this wonderful figure of 43 million ininsured, as though this is a national tragedy.

About 18 million of those uninsured are in their 20s. Another 20 million are illegals.

That leaves 5 million, out of a population of 306 million.

One should also look at the cost curved for treatment for LASIK and cosmetic surgery, most of which are not covered by insurance, and their historical trends. Compare this to insured care, where the winning move is to bill the entity paying the bills to the wall to extract as much money as possible, because it won't be the patient.

I would love to see a rule on the books that requires hospitals to show you a menu that lists how much everything costs....

"90% is earmarked? So the trillion dollar stimulus(s), the trillion dollar healthcare reform, the trillion dollar cap and trade...all earmarked by the previoius administration? Heh."

Well, when you consider all the spending which began under the Bush administration, it would have been insane to have stopped it.

There were 2 choices:

1. Dont spend a penny and let the bad banks fail and let the good banks eat them up. This would have done massive damage to the global economy, though we would have bounced back bigger and stronger.

2. Spend a bundle and hope that it is enough to keep the financial system afloat until the economy picks up.

If Obama had washed his hands of it half way through the spending option it would have meant the entire lot was wasted and it would most likely have ended up with Option 1 but a lot more debt.

Plus, despite his wishes to scale back on Iraq and reconsider what is being done in Afghanistan, it cant be done quickly as a rush job will see a big increase in deaths in terms of soldiers and civilians.

So yes, I would say 90% is about right.

Ken:
"I am pointing out that you can't blame Reagan for the deficits in the '80s. That lies thoroughly with Congress."

If Reagan submitted rubbish budgets then it would have been up to Congress to fix it. So you cant simply say "hey Reagan tried to do the right thing". You'd need to look at what services he wanted to cut, given he was also proposing massive tax cuts.

The problem is you should never have a balanced budget.

In good times you should have surpluses and pay off any debts, and once everything has been paid for, return the money to the taxpayers.

In bad times you should have deficits, where government increases spending when businesses are too afraid to.

The problem with the US is, they have budget deficits come rain, hail, or shine, and ultimately that is going to cost severely, either through increased taxes, or reduced spending.

Mike Johnson here is my source.

http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2008/08/21/did-medicare-fudge-numbers-on-fra...

It mentions an internal audit finding 7.5% fraud but the Inspector General of Health and Human Services said the rate was closer to 31.5%.

This is the source fo the 3-10% in private healthcare fraud.

http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2009/08/03/gvsd0804.htm

This is the source for the average admin cost of private insurance. Though it appears I misremember the number. It's actually 16.7%.

http://healthcare-economist.com/2006/07/27/medicares-true-administrative...

As for why I included the 11th Circuit case, I thought I had read somebody saying Doctor's not Gov't would make decisions on which procedures would get done. I was putting it forth as an example that the Courts are already saying the Gov't can override doctors decisions.

We take it for granted that there is defecit spending in the Federal government. I am concerned about the new ground being broken on both Federal and State levels. And I could give a hoot who started it. New York is broke, California is broke, New Jersey is broke. Probably more. I see tax hikes on the horizon everywhere, and I dont even keep 1/2 the money I earn now where I live.

Archduke- I just read the article, and agree it is disturbing but for slightly different reasons. Of course any fraud is bad! But the 31.5% fraud rate quoted in the article only pertains to durable equipment claims. In fact this is considered the area where fraud is most rampant so it makes sense to focus attention there. But Medicare is a $450+ billion program, and durable equipment spending is less than $10 billion. So while I agree that 31.5% is a heckuva lotta fraud, I would caution anyone against assuming the same level of fraud applies across the entire Medicare program.

The article itself focuses on an alleged manipulation of fraud audits by Medicare officials that resuted in less fraud being detected and reported on than was actually occurring. Several congressmen are expressing outrage that the numbers were being manipulated. But the really ironic part is that Congress killed a new bidding process designed by Medicare to reduce fraud and lower costs. Why? Because they were lobbied by the equipment manufacturers to do so!

In reality, the government HAD to step in and bail out the financial industry. Our entire economy is now so tied with the financial industry that it would have collapsed. Think about some things:

- businesses were failing due to the bad economy, increasing the jobless rate
- more jobless means less potential revenue for the people still in business
- many industries depend upon a stable financial industry (real estate, insurance, banking, etc.), so jobs were being lost there as well
- Few entrapaneurs can create new businesses without business loans, which simply weren't happening. Existing businesses also couldn't get loans to expand servcies. This resulted in stifled job creation.
- The auto indutry was suffering because people couldn't get car loans, resulting in more jobs being lost

Jobs were being lost in a geometrically increasing spiral as first, directly the financial institutions, then those who depend directly upon the financial industry, and then those who depend on a stable consumer base. Job loss resulting in lower revenues resulting in more job loss, resulting in even lower revenues, etc.

As far as government deficit spending in general, I agree with Paul Scott; it's good as long as there is a positive ROI. And sometimes, prevention of revenue loss is the only ROI you get, but it's still valuable.

"But we can't get so used to deficits that we don't notice when they get too big to ever repay"

Exactly. It's not so much THAT you have deficits. It's the amount relative to one's income/revenue that matters. That can even overcome ROI, in some instances. The retailer Merry Go Round, which was highly profitable, went best due to cash-flow problems, even though the ROI on their debt was attractive.

And of course, ROI is important... and we need to recognize that ROI can be a negative number.

For instance, buying something expensive on credit, other than a house or car because it is on "sale" is usually a bad idea.... unless your investments are returning a higher rate of return than your credit card interest rates (which is possible, but usually unlikely).

People think "well, I'm saving money", but you have to look at the cost of ownership, and not the sticker price.

I'm reading an excellent book right now, that I would recommend to anyone, entitled "Don't Know Much About History", by Kenneth C. Davis. I am only recently becoming a student of history, and this book was quite enlightening and accessible.

he says he doesn't know, "all the science isn't in"....
which would be fine.

But he ALSO says it's a "proven fact" that it is a "hoax", etc.

As I said, I have no proof one way or the other. But I do find that many of the people that are the most opposed to the idea that it's even POSSIBLE generally are people that don't want to believe that their actions could have consequences. I see them apply the same attitude towards other issues, like energy conservation, when we KNOW that there are detrimental effects to us based on our current consumption rates...... costs, sovereignty issues, dwindling supply, etc.

Hell, some people won't accept that we WILL run out of fossil fuels EVENTUALLY. Is it 10 years, 100 years, 1000 years? I have ZERO idea how much is left. But I do know, with a high degree of certainty, that we'll run out. But some people cannot, will not, accept that.

Another thing I do know for certain is that oil is getting harder and more expensive to find. That's not debateable. So while it's entirely possible that we've got a millenium worth of fuel left (although I consider that highly unlikely), it's clear that it will take greater and greater efforts to extract it from the ground. At some point, other options will be far more cost effective.

1) We recently found two patches (one in the deep Gulf, one off the coast of Brazil) that were not accessible a decade ago, but are accessible with current technology.

2) When adjusted for inflation, the cost of bringing a new field of oil has remained more or less constant since the mid-80s. It's still fskcing astronomical, and operational costs have gone up a smidge.

3) Supposedly, there's a technology that's extracting shale oil out of the Negev (and has been for four years) at $13/bbl. That's comparable to North Sea extraction costs. The asking price for this technology is 10 billion. So far, none of the oil companies have bit on it.

4) If you want to see an interesting discrepancy: Operational costs for fuel for the Air Force and Army aviation assets did NOT go up by 100-300% in 2008. Most of the Air Force's jet fuel, for the last 35 years, has come from Wyoming.

I don't know how long these states of affairs will last...but there was a LOT of evidence that in 2008, the 140+ dollar per barrel oil was done entirely by speculation, and ramped up by the media talking about Peak Oil Is Now!

I follow the futures and commodities markets on a pretty regular basis for clients I consult for. I don't invest in them (conflict of interest concerns). I look at both oil companies and other factors.

I generally regard Peak Oil, as currently postulated, as a constantly moving "30 years away threat" that's designed to help commodity speculators reap profits.

I do want us to find better sources of energy; I'd love to have 4th gen Thorium reactors in every city of 50K or higher in the US. If I thought the launch problems could be overcome, I'd love to see solar power satellites. You don't get an economy like ours without energy.

Medicare has a 5-level appeals process that involves both Medicare employees and outside consultants and culminates with the Federal Circuit court. I don't know who all in that process is or is not a practicing physician, but if it were to go to court I expect both sides would have doctors testifying if it was a question of medical necessity.

After looking at a couple of major insurers' appeals processes and a couple state patient advocacy websites I learned the following: Private insurance has a similar process whereby appeals go through administrators, not doctors, initially. Ultimately you can ask for an independent doctor to get involved but both sides are bound to that person's decision. I didn't find anything to indicate that private insurers used, or were required to use, practicing medical workers as part of their review panels. Of course my research was not exhaustive so it may be the case that they do and I just didn't find any evidence of it.

"We recently found two patches (one in the deep Gulf, one off the coast of Brazil) that were not accessible a decade ago, but are accessible with current technology."

It's going to get tougher and tougher, over time.

this seems like a non-issue to me, or at least not terribly important, as the data still exists.

Do you have a link for a reputable website where I can look at them?

out of context, I can't comment on your ABCD above, except to say in general, I can think of reasons why the "noise" would be different, depending on the context of the readings (for instance, if you recall our discussion about sensor placement)

One of the issues with the NASA data, is every time they release a new theory on impending doom, the historic data has changed.

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2964

In other news, Hitler was a woman: http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/hitler_skull_dna_woman/2009/09/28/265...