h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

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Yeah, right - 0.31% of the time, it's a woman who goes postal and kills thousands...

If you read carefully, if you eve read the thread *at all* you will see that I was parodying ES's fanciful post where he had a bus driver killing thousands of pedestrians. He refered to a male bus driver I was merely attempting to be humourous *and* assertimg the possibilities and rights of a woman or transgender bus driver to lose it and kill thousands of innocent pedestrians too. Right on sisters (and brothers obviously)

Blicky, Blicky, Blicky. It was not fanciful at all. It was perfectly illustrative of the way in which Dubya has used his position to murder thousands of people - and the folly of suggesting that the most fitting punishment would be for him to lose his job... in November... maybe... if enough people agree...

GW Bush is a war criminal. He should IMMEDIATELY be tried as such and subject to punitive justice.

Empty

it's frivolous statements and law suits like that which make international courts for war crimes lose their meaning, value, and jurisdiction.

dave

I think you'd be surprised, Dave. If it did go to court I think it could easily be demonstrated that Dubya is guilty of war cimes.

It's this American belief that their people are, and should be, above the law that was the reason America opposed the formation of an international criminal court.

What arrogant bar-stewards!

conversely, it's the insistence of extremists to pursue frivolous lawsuits which makes the US realize how unproductive and wasteful the ICC will be.

dave

Blicky, please check out the definition of "race" that I posted earlier in this thread.

My cousin is 3. His mother is Nigerian, my Uncle is white. Therefore he is mixed race. He has a friend who is of a similar age who is half Zimbabwean (is that right?) and half Malaysian.

Ignoring a part of a persons identity is disrespectful and rude.

Yes, we are all one race. But we are also a varied race of people with different cultural roots.

Didn't Americans INVENT frivilous lawsuits? It's the most litigious nation in the world.

sure we did - that's why we know the most about them, and have the best ability to recognize them, or a system which will run afoul of them.

dave

Then why not do something about them at home? Unnecessary lawsuits have reached absurd proportions in America. Somebody breaks a fingernail on a parking meter and they sue the city. I've seen reports of some towns actually being bankrupted and unable to pay their workers because of ridiculous lawsuits.

And the only people getting rich are the lawyers.

If you've really got a handle on these things, why are they continuing?

On a side note, I received a settlement check from Citibank last month. It was from a class action lawsuit I never knew I was part of. The lawyers involved split $7.2 million... I got 22¢! It will cost me more to post it to my bank.

That's typical count...there was poland spring bottled water class action suit that ended the same way. I think I get a couple coupons for (drumroll, you guessed it) poland spring...the lawyers get a couple $mil

I never said we had a handle on it...just that we can recognize it. Anyway, I think the problems in the US with frivolous lawsuits are greatly exagerated. I had appendicitis, the doctors sent me home saying it was food poisoning. So my appendix burst. I asked around to see, how bad a screw up is that - basically, everyone agreed that it was a mistake, but not a lawsuit.

If you know anything about appendicitis, you know that it is a lot worse than a broken fingernail.

dave

Geez Dave! The fact that you asked around to see if you had grounds for a lawsuit should tell you something's wrong.

In no other society on Earth, would anyone consider that such a trivial medical mistake is grounds for litigation.

In so may things (poor education standards, high crime rate, conservatism, xenophobia...) Americans just have no concept of how extreme their society is until they compare it to another (any other) society.

Unfortunately they very rarely do, they're so insular.

Empty if you knew about appendicitis, you would know that a burst appendix is not trivial...it can be fatal. Let me explain. If an appendix is removed before bursting, it can be an outpatient procedure. If it is removed after it has burst, the patient will be hospitalized for a long period. Personally, I was in the hospital for 2 weeks. So the difference for me was 0-1 days versus 2 weeks. I was on IV, having my stomach pumped for the 1st week in the hospital. I went from running 5 miles a couple times a week to barely being able to sit up straight, let alone walk.

You, empty, can call that difference trivial. But most reasonable people will not.

dave

Dave, it's not the difference that's trivial, it's the mistake. It's one that doctors make every day (and worse). It's an accepted risk of their profession and if a doctor could be sued over it, few people would consider it worthwhile studying to become a doctor. Surely even you can see how society would suffer from that.

I sympathise with your mis-diagnosis (the mother of a good friend of mine was mis-diagnosed in similar circumstances, she was told it was indigestion, actually it was a heart attack and she died). But to think it's grounds for litigation, is ridiculous.

I can't really argue with that, but I'd like to raise some points

There are lots of people studying to be doctors in the US - half of my freshmen class at college (class had ~1000 people) entered as "pre-med". The worry of lawsuits was the same then as it is now, yet they weren't detered. Obviously the current threat of lawsuits in the US isn't deterring people from trying to be doctors.

Sorry about your friends mother, that's much worse than my case. I can't speak from fact or example (luckily), but in the US if that happened someone would definitely look into a lawsuit.

Medicine is a business in the US, just like any other, and one of the constraints on business abuse is the legal system. I can see how it sounds weird, to think about lawsuits against doctors in these situations, but maybe if you think of it in a business sense it will appear more reasonable.

dave

mis-diagnosis, where someone dies, or when their life is put at risk is malpractice, which is what malpractice insurance is for, so that doctors who cock up can pay out what ever they are ordered to. If a doctor in the UK mis-diagnosed someone and endangered their life then they stand a better than average chance of losing their job aswell as being sued.

A doctor who diagnoses someone as having indegestion when they're having a heart attack shouldn't be working as a doctor, not unless there were mitigating circumstances, eg he was halfway up a mountain or in the a*se end of nowhere at the time. Maybe we just expect more from doctors in the UK, but I, and I suspect most people here, believe that if someone's been through 6yrs of uni based training and 1yr in a hospital then they should know what they're doing. If they don't then I don't want them anywhere near me. Maybe having a family full of HCP's [health care profesionals] and having friends who are either Med students or docters has made me biased.

Empty, you are quite right that the "sue-happy" mentality of many Americans is one of our least endearing traits. But when it comes to medical malpractice suits, it's hard to know where to draw the line. A doctors mistake can easily cost you your life, or health. On the other hand, even with the best of intentions, doctors are only human and even the best of them will make mistakes... If you have a solution I'd be happy to hear it.

I would suggest perhaps a board of doctors to analyze each case where something goes wrong and decide if the mistake rises to the level of gross negligence or incompetence, before proceeding to a lawsuit. This might help control some of the ridiculous medical cost increases as well...

Just dropping by for a minute. Couldn't help but laugh.

"sure we did - that's why we know the most about them, and have the best ability to recognize them, or a system which will run afoul of them."

in other words:

"We are smarter, more perceptive, and perhaps better than everyone else in the world because we wast our lives sueing each other into bankruptcy. I don't care what the actual wording, facts, rules, protocols, etc. of the ICC are: obviously every single government of the dozens of countries who think the treaty is a good idea are living in some sort of fairyland without the wonderful freedom and liberty to litigate that we have here in America."

Is that about right, Dave?



P.S. I'm hanging on every bit of evidence that's going to come out of that government investigation into Janet Jackson's right breast!

> Ignoring a part of a persons identity is disrespectful and rude. Yes, we are all one race. But we are also a varied race of people with different cultural roots.

I agree with Saturnine. Denying your own heritage is insulting to your ancestors.

> "We are smarter, more perceptive, and perhaps better than everyone else in the world because we wast our lives sueing each other into bankruptcy. I don't care what the actual wording, facts, rules, protocols, etc. of the ICC are: obviously every single government of the dozens of countries who think the treaty is a good idea are living in some sort of fairyland without the wonderful freedom and liberty to litigate that we have here in America." Is that about right, Dave?

First thing we do, we kill all the lawyers.

It's my personal belief that our litigious society is self-perpetuating. In other words, if we sued less, lawyers wouldn't have a job. And that's fine with me. People naturally wants to blame others for their problems - from the education system to fast food, it's always somebody else's fault. I'd like to see a penalty for frivolous lawsuits. They waste the court's time, which it doesn't have a lot of.

On the other hand, doctors make mistakes that they shouldn't be making. Many people have died from malpractice here in the States. If the doctor had been paying attention, that crucial allergy to penicillin would have been noticed, and the patient would have survived. There's certain things that the doctor is expected to do - the question is, how do we define malpractice? My friend here at work was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma. It took him four months and three different doctors before they finally figured out what was wrong with him. You'd think a lump on his side and excruciating pain would have been a clue, right? But his regular practitioner just kept giving him pain pills. Fortunately he's responding well to treatment. He's not out of the woods yet, but the cancer is almost gone. I'm just glad it wasn't too late!

> P.S. I'm hanging on every bit of evidence that's going to come out of that government investigation into Janet Jackson's right breast!

Isn't that funny... And don't forget, it's not the breast that's the problem. It's the nipple. A woman can be almost completely naked according to FCC regulations, except that the nipple and crevices need to be covered. If Janet Jackson had stepped out on stage with a couple pieces of duct tape, a la Cher, then the FCC couldn't have said a word. But show one tidbit (would that be tit-bit? ) of titty, and they're all upset.

I think it's great. She's created more reaction by showing two inches of flesh than Britney Spears ever has by showing her entire pubic area... (sans the crevices, of course.) Yeah for her.

> Ignoring a part of a persons identity is disrespectful and rude. Yes, we are all one race. But we are also a varied race of people with different cultural roots.

I agree with Saturnine. Denying your own heritage is insulting to your ancestors.

Nice to see some agreement on this thread Len and Sat, but which bits are you agreeing with. Are we one or varied?

I will accept that we have a varied cultural and ethnic heritage, but if my mom was a woman and my dad a man does that make me half woman/man? No, obviously not. Just because it is written does not make something true. Sure its in the Bible and the OED that there are different races but that is not the truth. We can find referrences to fairies and men living for nine hundred years in those books. Race is a fallacy have you read any of the links.

In this the writer Darren Chetty's experiences are similar to my own personal journey of discovery about this issue.

http://www.pih.org.uk/articles/chetty.html

But recognising the reality of 'race' as a myth - an all-encompassing belief that informs our daily beliefs and actions - can help us towards a more accurate description of racism as: 'A belief that the human race can be divided into further races.'... That the term 'race' is itself 'racist'....belief in the existence of races was and remains a man-made system of division, and such division has led and continues to lead to inequality. (We may note that 'apartheid' literally translates to apart-hood. The term itself does not refer to superiority. However we have all seen the reality.)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/africa/features/storyofafrica/index_section2.shtml

This one shows that we are *all* one people.

I understand where you are coming from on this, we grow up using the words and it takes a sysmic mental shift to overturn ideas that so many people accept without ever questioning where they come from.