Do I want to study medieval literature?

[goroth]

You work in the Australian university sector? Nicely done Barbarian friend!

[Iommic Pope]

Bahah!
If only.

Ok, so maybe my rant was a bit biased....but not entirely unfounded.
I actually don't have a problem with internationals, they often bring new ways of thinking and are 99/100 times super interesting and awesome people. Education should be available to everyone (more than that, it should be free for everyone).
What I get shitty at is that it is treated like an industry, if not from the perspective of a university keeping its doors open, from those who would attempt to spin a buck off it (local businesses looking to exploit student labour that often doesn't speak/write English to a level that prevents their being ripped off, real estate agents hiking up rent and property values because a certain demographic of student can afford it) and it marginalises domestic students by lowering the standards of lifestyle factors surrounding uni life for them (having to deal with no jobs, higher rents and only centrelink to get them through, which doesn't even cover a week's rent per fortnight, let alone food, transport etc.).
Also, I was at uni for the second half of the Howard era. University funding got the arse cut out of it, and it hasn't been replenished since. Commonwealth funded places are great, provided Federal pony up the cash. Which they have been cutting back more and more on.
They are also in the process of ruining primary and secondary education as well as health as we speak.
Plus the standard of what is taught at university level here has plummeted as well, along with the quality of work that lecturers/coordinators have to pass. But that is part of the whole problem we are now having with a broken school level education system. High school graduates just ain't what they used to be.
Honestly, this isn't sour grapes from a cranky old man either.

So to sum up, while our system isn't quite awful yet, it is certainly heading that way. I get enraged because it is one of the things I love about this country, but these dick bag politicians are only concerned with attaching a price tag to everything and delivering a surplus before the next election, regardless of how gone to shit the country is because they wouldn't spend any money.
That is a whole other thread though.

[D.o.S.]

Bahah!
If only.

Ok, so maybe my rant was a bit biased....but not entirely unfounded.
I actually don't have a problem with internationals, they often bring new ways of thinking and are 99/100 times super interesting and awesome people. Education should be available to everyone (more than that, it should be free for everyone).
What I get shitty at is that it is treated like an industry, if not from the perspective of a university keeping its doors open, from those who would attempt to spin a buck off it (local businesses looking to exploit student labour that often doesn't speak/write English to a level that prevents their being ripped off, real estate agents hiking up rent and property values because a certain demographic of student can afford it) and it marginalises domestic students by lowering the standards of lifestyle factors surrounding uni life for them (having to deal with no jobs, higher rents and only centrelink to get them through, which doesn't even cover a week's rent per fortnight, let alone food, transport etc.).
Also, I was at uni for the second half of the Howard era. University funding got the arse cut out of it, and it hasn't been replenished since. Commonwealth funded places are great, provided Federal pony up the cash. Which they have been cutting back more and more on.
They are also in the process of ruining primary and secondary education as well as health as we speak.
Plus the standard of what is taught at university level here has plummeted as well, along with the quality of work that lecturers/coordinators have to pass. But that is part of the whole problem we are now having with a broken school level education system. High school graduates just ain't what they used to be.
Honestly, this isn't sour grapes from a cranky old man either.

So to sum up, while our system isn't quite awful yet, it is certainly heading that way. I get enraged because it is one of the things I love about this country, but these dick bag politicians are only concerned with attaching a price tag to everything and delivering a surplus before the next election, regardless of how gone to shit the country is because they wouldn't spend any money.
That is a whole other thread though.

You should come visit over here sometime if you want more ire for that fire. It's like what you're describing, but with a knee-jerk, residual Cold-War reaction to anything that could be construed as "socialized."

[goroth]

There's a lot of truth in what both you duders are saying. We're (sweeeeeden) still at the point that higher education is seen as a right, and there's no debate about the % of the GDP we spend on it. But it's probably just a question of time - already we've moved (under the economic rationalist government) to a performance oriented funding for research, which has had a fairly drastic effect on the humanities.

[D.o.S.]

A friend of mine is actually doing some crazy post-grad work over in Sweden. Small world.

[Iommic Pope]

DoSinator: yeah man, watching the public reaction to Obama's health care (which I understand as a hot topic for those on the breadline) and seeing it described as outright communism was a bit crazy from our perspective. We have Medicare, our gov. funded public health system, which everyone pays a levy for at tax time, unless you have private health cover, in which case you get a rebate (you'll still have to cough up a little, though). It's a system that is falling apart as state and federal governments pass the buck about who is going to fund health, but at this point, it's just covering basic needs. Barely. Sadly though, as it gets worse, it means that only those with private health cover will get immediate adequate attention, which will become more expensive as the situation worsens and the private sector has everyone by the balls.
To see people react as they did to Obama care was nuts as, from our perspective, it seemed that the very people complaining about it the loudest were those who stood to benefit most from it (admittedly, I don't know the ins and outs of this, just observing from an outsider perspective).

Gorothotron: I've always admired the Swedes for their progressive ideas, AND THE FACT THAT THEY PUT THEM INTO PRACTICE. Scandinavian countries rule!
Economic rationalists suck balls, though.
We pay stupid high taxes in this country...and we don't get a lot for it.

Technocracy now!

[D.o.S.]

DoSinator: yeah man, watching the public reaction to Obama's health care (which I understand as a hot topic for those on the breadline) and seeing it described as outright communism was a bit crazy from our perspective. We have Medicare, our gov. funded public health system, which everyone pays a levy for at tax time, unless you have private health cover, in which case you get a rebate (you'll still have to cough up a little, though). It's a system that is falling apart as state and federal governments pass the buck about who is going to fund health, but at this point, it's just covering basic needs. Barely. Sadly though, as it gets worse, it means that only those with private health cover will get immediate adequate attention, which will become more expensive as the situation worsens and the private sector has everyone by the balls.
To see people react as they did to Obama care was nuts as, from our perspective, it seemed that the very people complaining about it the loudest were those who stood to benefit most from it (admittedly, I don't know the ins and outs of this, just observing from an outsider perspective).

Gorothotron: I've always admired the Swedes for their progressive ideas, AND THE FACT THAT THEY PUT THEM INTO PRACTICE. Scandinavian countries rule!
Economic rationalists suck balls, though.
We pay stupid high taxes in this country...and we don't get a lot for it.

Technocracy now!

Yeah I have a bunch of family friends that live in Australia, and from what I've gathered between them and the Aussie ILF-ers things do not seem to be going so well for right-thinking folks politically right now.

Basically, there's a couple of different reactions to Obamacare. One posits that it's unconstitutional, because it's essentially a mandate that requires citizens to acquire health care, which could be construed to violate the 8th Amendment and it's deliciously ambiguous declaration that "no excessive fines will be imposed." Most knee-jerk youtube comments/message board posts go to that.

You could also say that it operates as a tax on (or a coercion towards) commerce, which would either be helped or negated by the commerce clause in the constitution, which verbatim says Congress has the right "to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;" which goes either way because A) the ACA didn't emerge from the house, so Congress is being denied it's rights or B)the fact that Health Care probably shouldn't be considered a commodity in the first place.

Basically, the HealthCare lobby wasn't going to stand for the correct solution--a base system of single-payer coverage that could apply to all citizens--so instead we get this convoluted bullshit that doesn't really do anything to fix the problem in the first place and causes a lot of headaches among people who've got coverage that falls into the grey area of "yeah that's not going to work anymore sry bb," and basically is an unnecessary clusterfuck that certainly ensures that we're never really going to be able to fix health care in this country.

[Jeff-7]

Politics and healthcare in a "should I study medieval lit" thread. I love you ILF. Study what you find interesting, even if it won't affect your major or job goals. College is becoming so ridiculously expensive. More credit hours required to graduate, with required classes that are uninteresting/not useful towards your major.

Also, Obamacare isn't Obamacare without single-payer coverage. The original form was bastardized in concessions. Health care is ridiculously overpriced and treatment can ruin you financially. The treatment of people with illnesses shouldn't be one of the largest and most lucrative industries we have.

[wafl]

Wow what happened here eh? So no crazy theories on the origins of Voynich manuscript?
Anyways I always saw the problem with international students(where i am) was that they raised the admission average to be ridiculous for the rest of us because these Chinese students spent there entire lives in a classroom or went to private schools that gave them higher looking marks. The university i go to though has different admissions for domestic and foreign students, because all domestic students went through the Canadian education system so you have a better guarantee of what they know.
IMO The extra money from international students is helpful when the government are being cocks as long as it doesn't cause a problem for domestic students that can't afford to go to other cities for uni.

And the Americans(of the US) opposed to healthcare have to see that the rest of the first world and many developing countries have public healthcare and are doing better economically than you(USA).
But I guess expecting people to want help eachother out is too much ask.

[D.o.S.]

Wow what happened here eh? So no crazy theories on the origins of Voynich manuscript?
Anyways I always saw the problem with international students(where i am) was that they raised the admission average to be ridiculous for the rest of us because these Chinese students spent there entire lives in a classroom or went to private schools that gave them higher looking marks. The university i go to though has different admissions for domestic and foreign students, because all domestic students went through the Canadian education system so you have a better guarantee of what they know.
IMO The extra money from international students is helpful when the government are being cocks as long as it doesn't cause a problem for domestic students that can't afford to go to other cities for uni.

And the Americans(of the US) opposed to healthcare have to see that the rest of the first world and many developing countries have public healthcare and are doing better economically than you(USA).
But I guess expecting people to want help eachother out is too much ask.

Some of the problem boils down to geography--the US is bound together by a common language, but there are pretty vast political and social differences across the continent. There was a pretty interesting (YMMV, obvs) article about this that came out earlier this week (and it had a map!):
http://www.tufts.edu/alumni/magazine/fa ... -arms.html

NSFW tags for size:

NSFW: show

[Iommic Pope]

DoSinator: yeah man, watching the public reaction to Obama's health care (which I understand as a hot topic for those on the breadline) and seeing it described as outright communism was a bit crazy from our perspective. We have Medicare, our gov. funded public health system, which everyone pays a levy for at tax time, unless you have private health cover, in which case you get a rebate (you'll still have to cough up a little, though). It's a system that is falling apart as state and federal governments pass the buck about who is going to fund health, but at this point, it's just covering basic needs. Barely. Sadly though, as it gets worse, it means that only those with private health cover will get immediate adequate attention, which will become more expensive as the situation worsens and the private sector has everyone by the balls.
To see people react as they did to Obama care was nuts as, from our perspective, it seemed that the very people complaining about it the loudest were those who stood to benefit most from it (admittedly, I don't know the ins and outs of this, just observing from an outsider perspective).

Gorothotron: I've always admired the Swedes for their progressive ideas, AND THE FACT THAT THEY PUT THEM INTO PRACTICE. Scandinavian countries rule!
Economic rationalists suck balls, though.
We pay stupid high taxes in this country...and we don't get a lot for it.

Technocracy now!

Yeah I have a bunch of family friends that live in Australia, and from what I've gathered between them and the Aussie ILF-ers things do not seem to be going so well for right-thinking folks politically right now.

Basically, there's a couple of different reactions to Obamacare. One posits that it's unconstitutional, because it's essentially a mandate that requires citizens to acquire health care, which could be construed to violate the 8th Amendment and it's deliciously ambiguous declaration that "no excessive fines will be imposed." Most knee-jerk youtube comments/message board posts go to that.

You could also say that it operates as a tax on (or a coercion towards) commerce, which would either be helped or negated by the commerce clause in the constitution, which verbatim says Congress has the right "to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;" which goes either way because A) the ACA didn't emerge from the house, so Congress is being denied it's rights or B)the fact that Health Care probably shouldn't be considered a commodity in the first place.

Basically, the HealthCare lobby wasn't going to stand for the correct solution--a base system of single-payer coverage that could apply to all citizens--so instead we get this convoluted bullshit that doesn't really do anything to fix the problem in the first place and causes a lot of headaches among people who've got coverage that falls into the grey area of "yeah that's not going to work anymore sry bb," and basically is an unnecessary clusterfuck that certainly ensures that we're never really going to be able to fix health care in this country.

Cool. Cheers bud, I get it a bit more now.
And no, Jeff, healthcare should not be an industry. Nor should education or necessary (I wanna stress that, NECESSARY) public infrastructure. Yet these bungholes that we elect seem to think it should all be a money spinner.
Taking care of the people that vote for you is not going to put money in your pockets, assholes. That's why we have industries and resources that you shouldn't be giving huge taxbreaks to.
Ugh, the threat of losing mining contracts to developing countries has put a choke-hold on common sense down here.

And, I will start another thread to discuss the original subject matter, wafl.
We could get all book club about it!

Apparently, there are topless book clubs.
Edit: didn't think that need a NSFW. I may be wrong.

[Jeff-7]

Nips are covered, you're good.

[Iommic Pope]

Yeah, I've always been weirded out by that whole "There's no indecency until you can see nipple (or labia)."
We all know what's going on....why does it take that critical tiny part of the anatomy to tip the scales?

[Jeff-7]

Because people are fucking weird/prude.

[HorseyBoy]

^ Great book, too! Love the early Lawrence Block stuff and the Hard Case Crime imprint. I had no idea topless chicks dug that stuff Do you think they love fuzz as well?