Mimpy

Bush Urges Tax to Help Cover the Uninsured President Bush intends to use the State of the Union address on Tuesday to tackle the rising cost of health care with a one-two punch: tax breaks to help low-income people buy health insurance and tax increases for workers whose health plans cost more than the national average.

That was great. Thank you.

That's what I meant. Rendell is going to spend money on health care: that's really not going to change. But if he's going to spend it, I'd rather he do it efficiently so that he takes less of my money. The article does say, however, that he proposes to fund this undertaking by taxing more heavily on cigarettes and things like that. I'm not a smoker, so thankfully he won't be taxing me more than he already does.

I believe it was last week when Schwarzenegger proposed his universal health care plan for California. This morning the governor of Pennsylvania, Ed Rendell, announced his "Prescription for Pennsylvania," which "includes providing subsidized basic health insurance plans, penalizing employers who don't offer health insurance, restricting how insurers set premiums, rewarding health-care providers who expand their hours of operation and strengthening government oversight of hospitals." The article can be found here. My questions are: was Schwarzenegger the first governor to propose such a plan at the state level? Rendell could have planned this for a while, but he did announce it this week...was he influenced by Schwarzenegger possibly? Do you think other states will follow? I know PA has suffered from a shortage of doctors for quite a while...one of Rendell's ideas is to relegate some of the physicians' responsibilities to other health care workers, like "properly trained nurses, advanced nurse practitioners, midwives, physician assistants, pharmacists, dental hygienists." I obviously don't think the government should be interfering in this..but if it insists on doing so, shouldn't it instead focus on trying to make Pennsylvania a more appealing place to work for MDs and DOs? They are qualified and trained in doing what they do...training other health care workers to perform physicians' jobs would, I think, require more money than the latter approach. Thoughts?

Is there a definite release date for the seventh book yet? I heard it was rumored for 7/7/7...has the actually date been decided yet?

Yes, honesty is usually the best policy. But we were discussing whether Dominique should apologize to Roark or not. She never lied to him...so why should she apologize to him?

Dominique had every right to write whatever she wanted in her column...it was purely her opinion. She had every right to express her opinion to others, discouraging them from liking Roark. The fact that people listened to her has nothing to do with it. She violated no right when she expressed her opinion. She would not have a right, however, to exert physical force on someone else.

Of course then she should apologize. Violence threatens someone's physical life. But Dominique trying to destroy Roark's career...Roark knew it was impossible to do so because Dominique could only affect the idiots of the world. The others would not listen to what Dominique said: they'd use their own judgement. Roark had no reason to feel threatened.

But did Roark ever express disapproval of what Dominique did? From what I remember, he didn't. He let her act as she wanted to act. So apologizing would be superfluous...the fact that she changed her beliefs is homage enough to Roark's person and values.

I understand you meant Dominique should apologize. But I don't understand for what....Roark knew what she was trying to do: still he loved her and wanted her. What's to apologize?

Apologized for what? He wasn't doing her any favor by waiting for her. He did it out of his own selfish motive: he wanted her and was willing to wait till he had her.

But she isn't destroying achievement. She is just trying to.....she never destroys Roark. As for the statue she is said to have destroyed earlier....well, she bought that statue. She could do anything with it that she wanted. But she only ever tried to destroy Roark. She certainly never succeeded. And if destroying achievement is the chief concern, then what about AS? Everyone destroys their achievements in that novel. Would you consider that wrong?

I read this on Leonard Peikoff's site a while ago: Q: I am writing to inquire about your sentiments on the current state of America and the world. A: I now read only the front page of the New York Times, dropping each story when it is necessary to turn the page. That way, what is happening does not become too real to me. I didn't understand this statement when I first read it. I mean, I got that he didn't like what was happening in the world, but I didn't understand how he could feel so passionately about it. These days I'm beginning to understand more of what he meant every day. I think it all started with gov class. There is no real problem with the material we cover: it is all strictly outlined to prepare us for the cumulative exam at the end of the year. We learn about government the way that it is now. Naturally a lot of the classtime is spent debating because politics is something that can be so controversial at times. I'm usually one of the debaters, and sometimes I wish I weren't. It surprises me how much of what we learn really affects me...I get so angry sometimes sitting there in the room and listening to my teacher spitting out things about welfare, public education, the public health system, etc. I don't know why I get so angry! I mean, I know that I have very strong values and that I have reason for my values....so when someone expresses a different value, it affects me. But these days it's gotten quite awful. I've become so passionate, I think, that it's almost painful. And to top it off, half the class thinks I'm some clueless anarchist, when I probably think about government more than the rest of them combined. Of course, I could just keep my mouth shut and let other people talk. But I feel that by listening to all that crap, that I'm not doing my part....that I should express my values because I know them to be right...for myself. I don't want to give anyone the idea that I actually agree with any of the stuff we're taught because it makes me sick to my stomach. I don't mean to imply that I care what others think...but for my own sake, I like to express myself. Like today...taxation came up and a friend of mine said that if you earn more than $200,000 a year, you're taxed 39%. (Is there truth to this?) Now I already know that taxation is bad and that we wouldn't have to pay so much if the government were much smaller...but hearing those numbers got me reeling with anger. I thought about how I want to be a surgeon. I thought of my money being taken away from me without my consent. It made me want to punch something! Similar instances have occurred...someone has said something that is just so awfully wrong that it's painful to even listen to. And as I'm discovering, even when people are presented with irrefutable logic, they still sometimes don't agree with you. It baffles my mind and affects me terribly. I understand what Peikoff means now. It's unbearable at times. What does one do? I can't just not care....my values are very important to me, I can't be indifferent towards them, that'd be a contradiction. Do I just deal? Is this a constant struggle I'm going to have to endure?

I'm no expert, but from what I know, it's the former. The more you know about an electron's momentum, the less you know about its position. And vice versa. It's more difficult to mathematically calculate one when you know the other.

John Galt (Rand) said in AS that "in any compromise between good and evil, only evil can profit." Dominique couldn't stand to see beauty destroyed by an unappreciative world that actually tried to hurt that beauty. So she destroyed the beauty herself to spare it undeserved pain. That's what she tried to do to Roark...she didn't think that the world really deserved to see Roark's buildings. What she failed to see was that Roark was not guided by people's opinions of his buildings or their approval of them. He drew buildings because he loved to do so, and anybody who appreciated his aesthetic values, he built a building for them. Roark loved Dominique because, as Ifat said, because she "admired the heroic in man." Her values matched his. She only had one minor drawback, and for that Roark waited for her to figure it out. What's so wrong with that?

Even though you know what they're capable of? What they value, cherish, and hold to be true? Dominique's philosophy has a slight error in it; it can be amended...and indeed, she changes by the end of the novel. Roark does not mind waiting for her because he knows that she is worth it.

It's not like Roark worried that Dominique would actually destory him, even though she tried very hard to do so. On the contrary, Roark let her do as she pleased because he knew that one day she'd realize that the heroic trumps all, that the rationally intransigent mind cannot be conquered.

Depression can often times stem from no reason, whereas there's usually a reason why a person is sad.

I, too, used to frequently get depressed in my early teen years. It was absolutely terrible. I'd go through months of feeling sad for absolutely no reason. Medications didn't help...a rational mind did. I think it really is about one's outlook on life. Pessimism? Optimism? Realism? I'd say I'm a realist, and so nothing gets me that down anymore because I know realistically I can probably overcome it. I'm a happy little duckling now. Reminds me of what Roark said in TF, about something hurting only down to a certain point but after that it doesn't hurt anymore.

That's really, really sad. I mean, wow.

Psychiatrists almost always suggest medication with counseling. I did an internship last summer at the University of Pennsylvania in its Behavioral Health department. They were doing a lot of clinical research on depression and ADHD. One of the main problems I saw was that many of the patients were taking their medications all right, but they were either too lazy or too poor to go to counseling. The meds help temporarily, but the counseling helps in the long-run.

In the article SoftwareNerd posted a couple days ago, it said that Rand was considering making a mini-series on Atlas Shrugged. That would be the ideal way to portray AS on screen.

If my pet was sick, I wouldn't want to rely on his faith to cure my pet's illness. Sheesh!

I love poetry!! Don't read it as often as I'd like to because of time and whatnot, but I really like Walt Whitman...he's my favorite. As to why I read poetry...it makes me feel inspired.