I have read that Baywatch has a huge international viewership and that many non-American viewers have the impression that it is representative of the US as a whole.
Do other countries have the National Anthem before every game, high school, college and pro?
Not the UK, or Oman. I’ve never been to scholastic or professional (domestic) sporting events anywhere else (other than here).
I think you may be conflating the San Francisco homeless with the situation of the poor, and the situation of the poor and / or homeless in the rest of the country.
San Francisco had way, way more homeless people, panhandlers and crazy street people than any other major city in the world I’ve been (London, Edinburgh, Oxford, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Paris, New York City, Dallas, Houston, Austin, Orange County, CA, New Orleans, and Kansas City).
Even at that, homeless <> poor in the US. The vast majority of the street people in the US are drug addicts and/or mentally ill. The laws are generally written that people can’t be compelled to take their crazy meds, so they get committed, get treatment, then leave when they’re judged to no longer be a danger to themselves or others, and then since they’re “ok”, they quit taking their medicine. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Most poor families in the US likely own a car and a television, if not more than one each.
There is one thing I can honestly say that you don’t generally see in the US that seemed somewhat common in the UK: young people drinking WAY to excess (as in damn near alcohol poisoning) and then passing out on the sidewalk in the mud, or puking their guts up on their friends, or beating the absolute shit out of each other outside the clubs.
I spent a summer during grad school in Oxford, and us Americans were astounded at just how trashed the local British young people would get- I mean, you’d have girls passed out with their skirts half hiked up, laying on the sidewalk, or guys just whaling on each other, or people just pissing on the sides of buildings, or whatever.
That shit would get you a quick ticket to the drunk tank, and most likely a PI in any big city I’ve lived in, and in the college towns as well.
That’s probably just a lingering affect of fighting a 40+ year war of ideals (which we won, by the way, and most of the world was at least at one time thankful for that), and I also think it’s a bit of a strawman. My hs (in a red state) didn’t play the anthem before every game, and the 2 high schools I’ve lived within earshot of for thr last 5+ years don’t play the anthem before every game.
What do you think Western Europe was doing during the Cold War? Trying to figure out which side to back?
It’s not a strawman at all. I’ve been to college football games in 19 states, and high school games in six, and the anthem was played at all of them.
Are you still working Lust4Life? Reason I ask is that I’d emigrate to the US tomorrow, if it was just about the work. Absolutely superb place to work - I did two years in a Philadelphia lab and the commitment + attitude puts my current UK workplace to shame. If you’re very work-focussed in life then the US can’t be beat.
Not sure where your getting this dirty idea from, either. I thought Philadelphia was fine, and that’s a city considered to be at the rougher end of the scale. North Philadelphia had a certain zombie apocalypse vibe to it, granted, but by and large things were exactly as they are in the UK.
You can’t say that the US and the USSR weren’t the two main characters in the cold war. Even Europeans acknowledge that.
Well, that just settles it, then. Rnatb is a travelling school sports fanatic and they play the anthem at all his games so discussion overwith. They must play it everywhere.
Canada. I grew up on the US/Canada border, and throughout the year, not just during national holidays, I saw far more Canadian flags being flown on the Canadian side of the border, relatively speaking, than in the US.
Also consider national symbols in marketing, logos and so on. In Canada it was uncommon to find a logo of any company that didn’t incorporate a maple leaf in some form. In the US, it’s uncommon (but not unknown) to see symbols such as five-pointed stars, eagles, and so on in logos. More often than not, such logos are for companies that appeal to a blue-collar crowd.
Do countries outside of the UK play the national anthem before movies in a theater?
I think you misspelled California. 
OK, you posted a link by the NHS stating their goal is 18 weeks. As underwhelming as that is, the goal is only being met by 52% of the people.
Page 4 of this report:
The first set of data on this ‘18 week pathway’ was released on 7 June 2007. It shows that 52% of patients still wait longer than 18 weeks between a GP referral and their admission to hospital, and more alarmingly that 12% are still waiting over a year
Same report:
While the longest waits have been eliminated, there has been far less change in the average (mean) time waited. In fact patients already waiting somewhat under 3 months for inpatient treatment may now be waiting longer; median waiting times have actually increased:
Waiting times for inpatient treatment (days)
Mean Median
1999/00 – Q4 91 43
2001/02 – Q4 96 47
2004/05 – Q4 84____ 52
2005/06 – Q4__ 78____ 51
While I applaud the UK for trying to improve the system it belies the fact that they ration health care to a point where people have to leave the country to get needed care.
A friend who did his senior college year in France told me that the French he dealt with all seemed to think that life in the US was like Beverly Hills 90210 and Baywatch, and we all have guns. People kept asking him how many he owned.
You did read about the normalising of delays for patient based reasons?
Also, you mention folk having to go abroad for treatment, well why not? The NHS will pay for it, surely it is better to finance such operations, albeit in European hospitals rather than to have people waiting. In fact they don’t have to go abroad, but some choose to do so.
As for rationing, resources are finite, US healthcare is rationed before you even become ill, by the ability to pay, ours is rationed on the basis of urgency and need. If your need is greater or the requirement is urget, you get treated much sooner, within the hour if needed.
If you have the money, you too can get treatment in the UK exactly in the same way as the US, and financed in exactly the same way too, unlike Canada there is no restriction on citizens paying for treatment to obtain treatment sooner.
So what we actually have is the option to finance medical care just in the way the US does, and some folk do make use of this, or they use the NHS, the differance is everyone is covered, 100% for all conditions pre-existing or not, without limit to policy boundaries.
You don’t lose out when switching employers here as can happen in the US because of being tied to an existing insurance policy - try switching your insurance once you are already under treatment - not easy at all - in the US it can happen that the co-pays can do serious damage to your wealth, doesn’t happen here.
The most unfortunate US citiznes seem to be the ones who have some insurance, but not enough, they earn too much to gain access to state aid until they are broken by medical costs, but too little to pay for adequate insurance, no-one in the UK ends up broke because of direct medical costs.
The overwhelming majority of the UK population choose not to take out medical insurance and if they were so unhappy, and if the NHS were so useless, you can be sure there would be a much greater take up of US style insurance.
…and finally, you are rather selective about the figures you used as a referance, now try looking at the 2008 numbers, you’ll note something of a differance, I am not stupid, I understand what you did there.
Let me give you a hand, I’ll make it easy for you, from the second link I cited
You will have to download the excel files, but once you have, I’m sure you will have a ball.
They go abroad because they can’t get it done in anything resembling a timely manner. When you’re talking about heart by-pass surgery that’s a life threatening problem.
The difference is that someone who can’t pay in the US will still get treatment in a timely manner because we have the resources to do it with. It may cause financial hardship but you’ll still be alive to worry about it.
I had kidney stones a few years back. I was immediately sent to the emergency room where I got X-rays and an MRI. The prescriptions didn’t work so over the course of 2 weeks I saw my family doctor twice and a surgeon twice. After 2 weeks of waiting for the stone to pass I was given the option of surgery. I had it done 2 hours later. DONE. I didn’t have to worry that my GP was going to ration the drugs I needed as they do in the UK.
I personally know people who went through chemo with no source of insurance or financial capability to pay for it. They did not wait for this treatment for either financial or government rationing reasons. This lack of delay probably saved their lives.
The system in the UK, even the “new and improved” is sub-par. The poor get better medical care in the US for serious illness.
While I’ve been here long enough to know that not everyone has a gun (though obviously many more people do than in most European countries), it was one hell of a culture shock the first time I walked through the back half of a Wal*Mart.
“Aisle 7, fishing rods… Aisle 8, camping gear… Aisle 9, bicycles… Aisle 10, toy guns… Aisle 11… wait a second… that’s not a toy gun! That’s a… oh my god it’s a fucking shotgun!”
No, you just had to worry that your insurer was going to ration the drugs you needed, as they do here all the time.
You’d be shocked how many people think exactly that.
They qualified for a Medicaid type program and were either on it or got put on it on a fast track. Those who are not already on it might have to wait. I too have known a poor person who got free chemo on an expedited basis. When I asked about the insurance they told me they were on Medicaid.
Or have schoolteachers lead their students in a loyalty oath to the state every morning?
Which Europeans are those?
NATO and the Warsaw Pact states were the two main “characters” in the Cold War. The assorted peoples and governments of Western Europe spent just as much time trying to figure out how to defend themselves as the US did- in fact, probably quite a bit more. Americans worried about nuclear war. Europeans had to worry about nuclear war and conventional war.
Why do you think Britain and France maintained nuclear bomber and submarine fleets?