Why is Socialized Health Care Evil?

The health care debate in the US seems to be never-ending.

On one side we have Republicans loudly remonstrating against the evils of socialized medicine (US spelling deliberate), even though that's not what's being proposed. And on the other side we have the Democrats struggling just to articulate just what it is they're proposing.

While everyone seems to agree that the system is broken, no-one can agree on how to fix it.

The model proposed by Obama, which includes a “public option” of government-run health care to compete with the private insurance companies, seems sensible, so what is the Republicans' problem with it?

According to conservative journalist and Republican poster-boy Matthew Continetti it's because the public option is a slippery slope to socialized health care. This statement (made on last week's Real Time with Bill Maher) was left unquestioned, as if it's perfectly obvious that 'socialized health care' is a Bad Thing.

My question for US Republicans is this: why is this so? Apart from Cold War-derived cultural distaste for the word “socialized”, what's your justification for this view?

In the US you already have so many socialized institutions: defence force, police force … even your beloved fire-fighters.

These services are socialized because the benefits they provide are a group insurance against future events. It's not practical to price these services on an individual basis. No individual can assign a meaningful probability to whether, or to what extent, they will need to call on these services.

Education is also largely socialized because, like these other services, the advantage is not just realised by those who directly utilise it. Everyone benefits from an educated populace, just as everyone benefits from a defended country and safe streets.

So tell me please, all you US Republicans … why is health care any different?

Celebrity Dead Pool Has Moved!

After two years of sharing the stage here at I Like Portello, the time has come.

The Celebrity Dead Pool is all grown up and is moving on out.

A shiny new blog (featuring custom design by an internationally-famous designer known as My Lovely Wife) has been set up over at Celebrity Dead Pool.

It’s a place where the Dead Pool can grow and mature, frolic and play, and have girls over far from the watchful eyes of its grumpy parent blog.

All previous Celebrity Dead Pool posts have been moved over and what’s more, instead of just monthly updates, I’ll be providing so much more! Obituaries of the recently deceased! Ruminations on the mortality of man! And …

Well, that’s pretty much it. You know the drill. Check it out. Add it to your feeds. Subscribe.

Go on. It’ll be fun. Promise.

Area Illusionist Plays With Numbers, Viewers

A few days ago illusionist Derren Brown announced he was going to predict the results of the UK national lottery.

Here’s how it went down.

 

When the explanation came out for how it was supposedly done, it was laughably silly.

Brown claims he had a panel of 24 people write down their predictions, and he took the average. It’s the “wisdom of the crowd” theory, don’t you know.

Like all good scams there’s an element of truth to it. This “wisdom of the crowd” idea is real.

If you have a group of people guess (for example) a person’s age or the size of an object, then the average of the crowd’s guesses tends to be reasonably accurate. And the more people in the crowd the better it is.

Here’s why that won’t work for lottery numbers: the crowd can see the person or the object about which they’re guessing. And a person’s age and an object’s size are not random numbers generated after the guesses were made.

The lottery is random. Random guesses are random. The average of random guesses is still random.

If this method worked then you’d be able to pick the winning number each week by looking at previous results. There are any number of “systems” already based on this idea, for which any number of scammers will happily relieve you of your money. And none of them work.

So what does this mean? Not much. It means that Brown’s a clever illusionist and this was a clever illusion. And it means he hasn’t really revealed how he did it.

What he has done is create a market for scammers to take advantage of gullible people, by selling them number sets supposedly generated using this method. Expect to see those appearing in your spam filter very soon.

But I’ve got a better idea. Brown has apparently been told he’s not allowed to play the lottery anymore. If that’s true, and if he really thinks he can do this, then I’ll personally submit his next ticket for the modest fee of $100,000.

How about it, Derren?

Misunderstanding Atheism

Moderators of religiously-themes blogs are notorious for filtering dissent or discussion.

It’s hardly surprising. Rational discussion is the natural enemy of religion as theological arguments tend to crumble and fade away in its presence.

Case in point: voluble Christbot Bill Muehlenberg at Christianity Today. He had a little rant the other day about all those annoying atheists and that awful Catherine Deveny (particularly this article) and won’t they just leave us alone and anyway atheism makes no sense because how can you hate something that you think doesn’t exist.

Yawn.

I submitted a comment which (surprise surprise) wasn’t published, but I’ve learned to keep copies of such things.

Mr Muehlenberg, you got so close to indicating an understanding of the atheist's position a few times, before veering off. Let me show you a couple of turns you missed.

"They do this of course for at least two reasons: to discount the overwhelming longing for transcendence found among mankind, and to discredit those who are believers."

The first ... no. Simply not true. No atheist is interested in discounting the longing for transcendence. They merely point out that our modern religions provide a very poor imitation of it. Your second point is closer to the mark, but you show a lack of understanding of this with this later argument:

"They spend large hunks of their adult lives getting all hot and bothered about someone they claim does not exist."

Wrong. They get hot and bothered about the claims of believers and the things believers do in the name of someone that does not exist.

The closest you get to actual insight in your article was this:

"Indeed, in a totally materialistic world, our genes end up explaining – and causing – everything we do, believe or value. We are simply the product of our genes."

It's a little over-simplified, but pretty close to the mark. What exactly is your problem with this position? Any serious argument against atheism needs to address why this isn't the case, and yet you just threw it out there as if it is self-evidently wrong.

Let me ask you this, Mr Muehlenberg ... what evidence do you have that this statement is not true?

I may be waiting some time for a response.

TMBG Tell It Like It Is

Dead Pool 2009 – August Update

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Celebrity Dead Pool now has its own blog!
Find it at Celebrity Dead Pool 
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Once again I’m very late with the monthly update and once again I have no excuses. I throw myself upon the mercy of the internet.

On the 6th we bid a very fond farewell to cinema legend John Hughes. Passing away aged just 59, Hughes brought us the legendary Ferris Bueller and showed us just how pretty Molly Ringwald could look in pink (reasonably pretty, it turns out).

And of course Home Alone. But we forgive him for that last one.

On the 13th music technology pioneer Les Paul passed away at the very respectable age of 94. He leaves behind a huge legacy including  multitrack recording, the famous Gibson guitar and well-earned 6 points for Debbie who had the foresight to tip him.

The 15th saw the death of nuclear physicist Louis Rosen, the “father” of the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center and one of pioneers of particle accelerator technology. That’s the second time I’ve used the word “pioneer”. Think I can go for three?

On the 21st we lost Edward Goldsmith, a professional hippy and founder of the British Green party. An environmentalist long before it was fashionable we have Goldsmith to thank for the idea of the self-sustaining biosphere and therefore (in a sense) the movie Biodome. But we choose not to hold that against him.

Also on the 21st Dean Turner, bass player of Geelong rock band Magic Dirt, died of a rare form of tissue cancer at the age of 37.

The 25th saw the death of Senator Edward ‘Ted’ Kennedy. Unlike his older brothers John and Robert, Ted managed to avoid assassination. Opinions are divided as to whether he achieved much else. Hmmm. Too soon?

Finally, on the 28th we farewelled Adam Goldstein, a.k.a DJ AM, at the age of 36. While the official cause of death was an overdose of pain medication, speculation is rife that it was suicide. We eagerly wait the numerous albums he apparently had in the can prior to his death à la 2Pac and Michael Jackson.

And that’s it for August. As mention, 6 points are awarded to Debbie for the prescient tip of the late, great Les Paul.

The scoreboard looks like this …

Ty	64
Benn	64
Eliza	50
Rob	50
Russell	50
Debbie	6

 

… and we’ll see you all next month!

Australia and New Zealand Atheists Blogroll

Astute readers may have noticed the new blogroll in the right-hand column.

This was put together by Sean the Blogonaut, and offers a convenient one-stop-shop for atheist bloggers in Australia and New Zealand. As such it features some of the best atheism bloggers on the planet … and (in the case of blogs like mine) some amateur windbags with too much time on their hands.

Particular shout-outs go to Podblack, Bastard Sheep, A Drunken Madman, Dave The Happy Singer and OzAtheist, but it’s all good stuff and well worth your time.

One of our main tasks is to promote the next Atheist Global Convention, a.k.a. “The Rise of Atheism”, to be held in Melbourne in 2010.

Guests for the event include Richard Dawkins and P.Z. Myers along with local heroes Catherine Deveny and Phillip Adams.

It should be a blast. Stay tuned for further details.

My Universe Is Too Big For Your Little God

To quote the incomparable Douglas Adams:

Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the drug store, but that's just peanuts to space.

I often hear religious believers expound on the wonders of their faith and how it gives them a sense of transcendence; a sense that there’s something beyond this world and beyond our understanding and beyond and beyond and beyond …

It mystifies me when that kind of transcendence is found in religion.

The gods of our mainstream religions are just so small.

Take the Jewish god. He’s a petty misogynist obsessed with diet, fabrics and personal hygiene.

The Christian god (thought to be the same guy once he’d become a father and calmed down a bit) wants his followers to ritually cleanse themselves and demands legal marriage before any rubbing of genitalia can take place.

The Islamic god is also obsessed with sex, calling for adulterers to be stoned and women to cover their bodies lest the men around them fail to control themselves.

Just stop for a minute. Would an omnipotent and omniscient god really be interested in these things?

Look at the stars. Look at the Universe around you. Look at all the wondrous things these gods supposedly created.

We are a vanishingly small island in an unimaginably vast ocean of energies and forces.

Do you really think a being capable of mapping the galaxies cares how many times you wash your hands?

Homeopathic Vaccinations? Oh, Please.

This morning David and Kim (admittedly hardly paragons of scientific virtue) really dropped the ball.

Not only did they give a substantial chunk of air time to Isaac Golden, a “doctor” of homeopathy with some very strange ideas about vaccinating using homeopathy, their resident actual doctor Nikolai Petrovsky completely failed to call Golden on any of the bullshit he was spouting.

Warning: video may induce the urge to hit head on desk.

----------------------------------------
The video has been removed from YouTube because of a copyright claim from Channel Ten, but you can find a transcript here.
----------------------------------------

At timestamp 4:10 Golden claimed to have a homeopathic treatment for swine flu, and it was actually David who asked the very good question: “What is it? What are the components of it?”

Golden started banging on about the “law of similars” and similar nonsense, and Petrovsky still didn’t call him on it.

All Dr. Petrovsky had to say was “I’ll tell you what the components are David … it’s simple. In fact there’s just the one. Water! That’s it! You could fill your syringe up at the tap and it’d do you just as much good as a homeopathic vaccination. In fact, screw the $400,000 the Cubans apparently paid for their treatments. I’ll do it for $50,000 and a slab.”

But no … all Petrovsky could manage was some lame protests that “vaccines work” before being interrupted by Golden with some hand-waving about a “major scientific paper about to be published”.

Just quietly, I’m not holding my breath for that one.

The real concern here is that viewers watching this piece may have come away thinking that homeopathic vaccination is a viable alternative to genuine vaccination.

I’d like to see a follow-up piece, in which it’s clearly explained that the claims of homeopathic practitioners fly in the face of all known scientific principles, that homeopathy has never been shown to have any effect in a properly controlled double-blinded trial, and most importantly, that homeopathic solutions are indistinguishable from everyday tap water.

Australian Idol Stalls

The once-proud ex-juggernaut Australian Idol has limped to an unimpressive third in Sunday night’s ratings.

But why, I hear you ask? What could possibly put the kaibosh on this most venerable of reality TV staples?

Was it an audience backlash against professional tool Kyle Sandilands and his penchant for questioning 14-year-olds about their sex lives?

Was it the sudden realisation on the part of the audience that in all likelihood it’s going to be just as mediocre as last year?

Or has the audience started to twig that Australian Idol is just a relic of a bygone age?

After all, it’s just a glorified karaoke competition where the prize is a recording contract. And seriously, what’s that worth?

Once upon a time a recording contract was something to be valued. Once upon a time you needed a contract to get the capital to put a record together.

That meant teaming up with a record company and convincing them to stop snorting cocaine off the arses of Thai ladyboys for long enough to help you out.

But the party’s over. The record companies have lost their relevance.

Now any kid with some musical ability and a few hundred bucks for equipment and net access can record and distribute an album worldwide.

The game’s changed. If Idol wants to survive, it needs to change with it.

Of course, that’s probably giving the viewing audience of Australia too much credit.

It probably was Sandilands.

The AVN: Lies, Lunacy and Conspiracy Theories

The Australian Vaccination Network, despite their name and claims to be “pro-choice”, are a rabid group of anti-vaccination ideologues led by the (possibly well-meaning, possibly evil, definitely misguided) Meryl Dorey.

Spreading lies about the contents of vaccinations and debunked pseudo-science about their supposed effects (for the thousandth time: vaccines don’t cause autism!), recently they’ve gone right off the rails. On the AVN blog last week Meryl re-posted an article with some insane conspiracy theories incorporating Big Pharma, the Illuminati, and a nefarious plot to use vaccinations to infect us all with nanobots.

So that’s why they don’t like vaccinations. Huh. Here was me thinking they just had an aversion to needles.

One would hope this lunacy means they’ll stop being taken seriously by the public at large. It certainly won’t look good on their record now that they’re being investigated by the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission for breaches of the Public Health Act of 1993.

We’ll be watching with interest to see how that turns out.

The legendary Dick Smith has also gotten in on the action, taking out a huge ad in yesterday’s Australian to publicly denounce the AVN as the menace to society that they are.

The battle continues, and I suspect it will continue for some time. After all, anti-vaxxers have been around for as long as vaccinations.

We must remain ever vigilant and ensure the correct information gets out there.

Vaccinations save lives. Meryl Dorey and her crowd are spreading lies and misinformation. Left unchecked, lies like this will lead to death and suffering.

These are the simple facts.

Dead Pool 2009 – July Update

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Celebrity Dead Pool now has its own blog!
Find it at Celebrity Dead Pool 
----------------------------

My most humble apologies for the very tardy update.

I have no excuses to offer except for the fact that I’ve just had Foxtel installed (that’s cable TV for our American friends) and hence found other ways to spend my time.

But enough with the smug confessions and on with the dead pool update.

The month started with a tragic double act on the 1st, with the deaths of actors Mollie “Mrs Slocombe” Sugden and Karl “Lieutenant Mike Stone” Malden.

On the 3rd US author and journalist John Keel died at the age of 79. A noted UFOlogist and author of The Mothman Prophecies, Keel managed to turn an unfortunate case of clinical paranoia into a lucrative writing career.

The 17th saw the death of legendary newsreader Walter Cronkite. His mellifluous voice had him cited as the “most trusted man in America”, which makes me think John Howard might have been more trusted if he didn’t sound like such a whiny little shit. Or maybe not.

On the 18th Henry Allingham, just elevated to the position of world’s oldest man last month, passed away at the age of 113. I don’t want to jinx anyone but Walter Breuning, aged 112, takes his place. Good luck, Walter.

On the 19th famed Irish author Frank McCourt passed away at the age of 78. Author of Angela’s Ashes and 'Tis, McCourt turned his impoverished upbringing into a lucrative writing career. Take note, Keel.

The 21st saw the tragic death of actor Les Lye, best known for playing all the adult characters on classic Canadian kid’s show You Can’t Do That On Television.

On the 22nd cartoonist John Ryan, creator of the legendary Captain Pugwash passed away at the age of 88. Sadly those rumours about saucy double-entendres hidden in the character names (Master Bates, Seaman Staines and Roger the Cabin Boy) were nothing but urban legend. Dammit.

And finally on the 25th we farewelled Harry Patch, one of the last four surviving World War I veterans and the last to have actually fought in the trenches. Patch was 111.

And that wraps it up for July.

There’s been no further movement on the scoreboard so, as last month, it looks this:

Ty	64
Benn	64
Eliza	50
Rob	50
Russell	50

Simon and the Skeptics

A few weeks ago I wrote about science journalist Simon Singh and his run-in with the British Chiropractic Association.

Simon’s currently on a tour of Australia as part of the 2009 Festival of Ideas, doing meet-and-greets, promoting his books and talking (in a limited way) about the BCA libel case.

This evening he spoke to the Victorian Skeptics about some of the topics from his book Trick or Treatment, focusing particularly on homeopathy and its somewhat ridiculous underlying theory.

I was hoping that we might get one or two homeopathists or chiropractors popping up for a bit of an argument, but no such luck. It was largely a case of preaching to the converted so it was a very entertaining, but far from controversial, evening.

Having been a huge fan of Simon’s for years (ever since The Code Book and Fermat’s Last Theorem … I’m such a maths nerd), after the talk I bucked up the fanboy courage for a quick chat.

I can’t remember what we talked about (fanboy, remember?) but it did happen. I’ve got the photo to prove it.

Simon’s the one with the cool haircut.

Your Cut-Out-And-Keep Guide to Agnostic Atheism

Yesterday over lunch with some immediate and extended family, the topic of religion came up. I confess I may have been the instigator in this case.

Over the course of the discussion the comment was made that atheists (particularly that awful Richard Dawkins character) can’t really call themselves “atheists”, because you can’t prove there isn’t a God.

This is a very common view and in fact, probably the single most common “refutation” of atheism out there.

Unfortunately it’s a nonsensical argument, based as it is on the erroneous conflation of atheism with philosophical materialism.

Most atheists don’t claim definitively that there is no God. This is particularly true of someone like Dawkins who, as a scientist, values empirical knowledge. That kind of absolutism just doesn’t wash under his philosophy.

In precise terms Dawkins (and I would include myself in this camp too) is what you might call an agnostic atheist.

This is of course harking back to the original definition of agnosticism, being the acceptance that certain things, particularly the metaphysical, are inherently unknowable.

One’s position on agnosticism is completely separate from what one happens to believe about the metaphysical. It should be clear that agnosticism and atheism are no more mutually exclusive than agnosticism and theism.

To illustrate the point I would like to propose the following simple numbering system:

Group 1 is where you’ll find most religious believers, as it includes anyone who claims God is both knowable and known (usually just by them).

Group 2 houses your scientifically-minded theists and pretty much anyone who studies the philosophy of religion and somehow manages to remain a believer.

Group 2 is significantly less populous than Group 1 and a constant source of irritation to Group 3 (where you’ll find the vast majority of atheists) because it’s often trotted out in defence of religion under the pretence that that’s where most believers sit.

They don’t.

Finally Group 4 (containing your hardcore philosophical materialists) is largely empty. And because there’s hardly anyone in there, trying to refute atheism by targeting this lot is a bit like trying to kill a lion by clipping its toenails.

I respectfully request that all future religious discussions clearly indicate which of these four groups is being discussed.

Thank you.