# Nice try, Fotheringay-Phipps. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 20, 2009, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nice-try-fotheringay-phipps/497086 "2009-05-20T16:20:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2018, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nice-try-fotheringay-phipps/497086/101 "2018-02-04T21:00:56Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Ah, the value of trolls. Without which, such delights of poetry would never be rendered. so then they DO serve a purpose (aside from being a grim reminder of … something or other) ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2018, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nice-try-fotheringay-phipps/497086/102 "2018-02-04T21:04:00Z")
[quote=“SteveG1, post:99, topic:497086”] [/QUOTE] Okay, I stand corrected, the masters of the arcane arts _are_ available for children’s birthday parties. > [@SteveG1](#): > > so then they DO serve a purpose (aside from being a grim reminder of … something or other) So does the bacteria in your lower intestines. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2018, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nice-try-fotheringay-phipps/497086/103 "2018-02-04T21:59:18Z")
The enraged troll flings with a shitful hand of points unclear but thrown to spam and his buddies lol from across the thread for the enraged troll flings though braindead. ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2018, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nice-try-fotheringay-phipps/497086/104 "2018-02-05T01:18:40Z")
Button-pushing troll Obfuscating plain discourse Lame sophist: fuck you. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2018, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nice-try-fotheringay-phipps/497086/105 "2018-02-05T04:18:27Z")
Is it possible to write a limerick in Japanese? ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2018, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nice-try-fotheringay-phipps/497086/106 "2018-02-05T06:16:25Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Is it possible to write a limerick in Japanese? Not that I know of. But – at the risk of turning this place into a goddam poetry emporium – it’s certainly possible to write a limerick _ **about** _ Japan: There was a young lady from Aichi Whose body parts were very itchy [INDENT]When the boys from Fukui did mention That their place name expressed their intention She suddenly turned very bitchy.[/INDENT] ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2018, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nice-try-fotheringay-phipps/497086/107 "2018-02-05T11:45:12Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Is it possible to write a limerick in Japanese? That would depend on how rigid you are on your definitions. I’m sure there will be some sort of short funny poetic forms, but I expect Japanese metrics to be different from English ones and the specific “five verses AABBA” form may not currently exist. If it doesn’t it can always be introduced. ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2018, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nice-try-fotheringay-phipps/497086/108 "2018-02-05T14:28:05Z")
Here’s a thread where F-P tried to [understand the humor of different cultures](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=841782)and shut me out when I tried to enlighten him. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2018, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nice-try-fotheringay-phipps/497086/109 "2018-02-05T22:38:12Z")
> [@Guest-starring\_Id](#): > > Button-pushing troll > Obfuscating plain discourse > Lame sophist: fuck you. [Moderating] Saying “fuck you” to other posters is against board rules, even in verse. Please avoid this in the future. No warning issued. [/quote] ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2018, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nice-try-fotheringay-phipps/497086/110 "2018-02-05T22:50:57Z")
I don’t think any specific Doper was the subject of “fuck you.” “Lame sophist” is the subject in a haiku. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2018, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nice-try-fotheringay-phipps/497086/111 "2018-02-05T23:24:00Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Is it possible to write a limerick in Japanese? I can’t see why not. A limerick is just a restricted meter with a specific rhyme scheme, with humorous subject matter. I can’t say it would sound like poetry to Japanese people, and might even sound stilted and affected, but you could definitely write one. While Japanese syllabic structure is different, it does seem like they have something that is similar enough to our metric feet to even try to get that close to the same. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2018, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nice-try-fotheringay-phipps/497086/112 "2018-02-05T23:25:14Z")
> [@Knowed\_Out](#): > > I don’t think any specific Doper was the subject of “fuck you.” “Lame sophist” is the subject in a haiku. Pretty sure the subject of the haiku itself, and thus the “lame sophist” (as well as the “troll” in the first paragraph), refers to a particular Doper. ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2018, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nice-try-fotheringay-phipps/497086/113 "2018-02-06T00:08:58Z")
> [@Knowed\_Out](#): > > I don’t think any specific Doper was the subject of “fuck you.” “Lame sophist” is the subject in a haiku. Thank-you, but unfortunately: > [@BigT](#): > > Pretty sure the subject of the haiku itself, and thus the “lame sophist” (as well as the “troll” in the first paragraph), refers to a particular Doper. And thus: > [@Miller](#): > > [Moderating] > Saying “fuck you” to other posters is against board rules, even in verse. Please avoid this in the future. > > No warning issued. I hear ya, and thanks for no warning. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2018, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nice-try-fotheringay-phipps/497086/114 "2018-02-06T23:30:38Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > … > So does the bacteria in your lower intestines. Good point. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2018, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nice-try-fotheringay-phipps/497086/115 "2018-02-08T00:01:09Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Is it possible to write a limerick in Japanese? Depending on how strict you are, it’s impossible to write a haiku in any language _other than_ Japanese. Poetically: It’s not moraic; Our English has syllables, So we can’t haiku. [To help illustrate the difference](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mora_(linguistics)): > [@](#): > > For example, the Japanese name for “Japan”, 日本, has two different pronunciations, one with three morae (Nihon) and one with four (Nippon). In the hiragana spelling, the three morae of Ni-ho-n are represented by three characters (にほん), and the four morae of Ni-p-po-n need four characters to be written out as にっぽん. ---
**Author:** ![Grim\_Render](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@Grim\_Render](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grim_Render)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2018, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nice-try-fotheringay-phipps/497086/116 "2018-02-08T12:09:29Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > It turns out that **Fotheringay-Phipps** works for them. As an actuary. Think about what this means. Since ethical UHC systems are premised on the idea of community-rated costs (the general idea that everyone pays the same premiums and receives uniform unconditional coverage), it means that **Fotheringay-Phipps** inhabits the very core of the worst practices of privately insured health care: he makes his living deciding how much more sick people and old people should pay for health insurance compared to healthier people. > > All of this of course makes him so knowledgeable about the perils of single payer and UHC – that scourge of socialism – and so incredibly impartial, angelic, and piously unbiased – that **he has announced his intention of refusing any further discussion with any advocate of such terrible systems of socialized medicine** , such as myself. Note the similarity to the pitting in the OP. This is understandable, since all I know about single-payer comes from a lifetime of experience, whereas **Fotheringay-Phipps** has the full benefit of being employed by a for-profit health insurer and therefore has a _ **totally fair and completely impartial** _ viewpoint that I can never hope to match. He has, indeed, analyzed all the facts impartially, and amazingly it turns out that insurance companies are in no way to blame for any problems whatsoever in the health care system, and are in fact its heroes and its blessed salvation, and anyone who believes otherwise based on things like “facts” is kindly invited to talk to themselves, because they won’t be talking to **Fotheringay-Phipps**. > > I only mention this because people might naturally be inclined to conclude that **Fotheringay-Phipps** himself is completely useless, and perhaps worse than useless, and that his opinions on the subject are loathsome and worthless, and that he himself is a worthless self-serving unethical piece of shit. That would be too bad – at least for **Fotheringay-Phipps** – if anyone thought that. I don’t normally participate in these threads, but I found his behaviour in that thread extraordinary. He was sprouting right wing blog myths and using imaginary terminology. When this was pointed out to him, he refused to take that onboard, and instead chose to continue. His response to peer-reviewed papers is to quibble, and he never brings any arguments or cites of his own. Hes not fighting ignorance, he is on the other side of that battle. I don’t have any problem with his opinions (before I saw the in-favour-of-torture thread) or workplace, but he seems to have an inability to admit that he is wrong combined with a tendency to argue from a large base of ignorance. Its not a pleasant combination. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2018, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nice-try-fotheringay-phipps/497086/117 "2018-02-08T16:29:59Z")
> [@Grim\_Render](#): > > I don’t normally participate in these threads, but I found his behaviour in that thread extraordinary. > > He was sprouting right wing blog myths and using imaginary terminology. When this was pointed out to him, he refused to take that onboard, and instead chose to continue. His response to peer-reviewed papers is to quibble, and he never brings any arguments or cites of his own. Hes not fighting ignorance, he is on the other side of that battle. > > I don’t have any problem with his opinions (before I saw the in-favour-of-torture thread) or workplace, but he seems to have an inability to admit that he is wrong combined with a tendency to argue from a large base of ignorance. Its not a pleasant combination. I know you’ve made valuable and informed contributions to health care discussions, so I particularly appreciate your comments. My problem with **F-P** isn’t that I disagree with him – disagreement is the essence of debate. My problem is pretty much what you’ve stated: he is abjectly uninformed, hopelessly biased, and utterly incapable of engaging in honest debate. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2018, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nice-try-fotheringay-phipps/497086/118 "2018-02-08T17:25:52Z")
> [@Grim\_Render](#): > > He was sprouting right wing blog myths and using imaginary terminology. When this was pointed out to him, he refused to take that onboard, and instead chose to continue. His response to peer-reviewed papers is to quibble, and he never brings any arguments or cites of his own. It’s common to use language colloquially, when the meaning is clear in context, as was the case here. Conversely, pouncing on the issue of whether some term usage was technically correct and insisting on making a big deal of this (especially when the substance is unaffected) is the refuge of intellectually bankrupt scoundrels who try to make up via rhetorical games what they’re lacking in substance. As for cites, I believed (and believe) what I wrote about rationing is generally common knowledge. But even if it wasn’t, you yourself linked to cites which made that exact point I had been making. When confronted about this, your response was a blatant distortion of what your cite said (i.e. the 2%-3%). And when I pointed that out, you fell silent, only to reappear here where you had the comfort and assurance of knowing you would have the rabble on your side. None of this speaks well of you. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2018, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nice-try-fotheringay-phipps/497086/119 "2018-02-08T18:49:16Z")
Oh, look, the lying piece of shit shows up in person with more shameless lies (or, really, a rewording of the original ones). No, you dumb fuck, when you talk about “socialized medicine” you’re not using a term whose “meaning is clear in context”, you’re using a meaningless slur that acts as a dog whistle scare tactic ("socialism!!) to all right-wing fucks like yourself, a term that applies to virtually every health care system in the civilized world outside the US regardless of how they’re actually structured. And you similarly abuse the word “rationing”, another wonderful right-wing dog whistle that conveniently implies that once you’ve “socialized” medicine, health care will be “rationed” and thus there will be shortages and scarcities (as in wartime, and no doubt people will die). The clear implication to all right-wing fucks like yourself is really quite perfect. Then you have the audacity to dig up an article that uses the word “rationing” _ **in a completely different sense entirely** _ – a fact so obvious that you admit it yourself – and then shameless crow that you were right – “rationing” is a thing! No, you dumb fuck, the article is talking about the cost-effectiveness of drug formularies, something that I showed you [is a rampant practice with your beloved insurance companies](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20759827&postcount=60) – except that it’s worse, because it’s motivated by profit, and often done with no explanation or medical justification. And your response to that fact? Why, speaking of “going silent”, you not only went silent, you lying piece of shit, [you announced that you were no longer going to respond to posters like me](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20759872&postcount=63), to whom it was apparently getting hard for you to respond. Oh, and speaking of that 2%-3%, I should let **Grim Render** speak for himself, but ISTM that the reason he quoted those percentages _ **was because that’s what the fucking article said** _. Now, did the article also say that there may have been additional waste that wasn’t accounted for in those percentages? Yes, it did. But [as I pointed out over here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20761770&postcount=92), it doesn’t matter a whit what extra costs you want to tack on to alleged operational “waste” because medical costs are so enormously higher in the US than anywhere else in the world – many of them by many multiples, as I showed there – that you obviously have to look elsewhere for foundational underlying causes, to wit, the entire structure of the health care system imposed by the private insurance industry. So, with regard to “falling silent”, I assure you that neither I nor, I presume, **Grim Render** , “fell silent” because of the awesome power of your arguments. Speaking for myself, at least, I said what I had to say and left that thread when it became apparent that you’re a worthless fuck who ignores facts when presented and prefers to argue out of his asshole, and so is a waste of time. I’m not even going to belabor the fact that you work for this sordid industry – everybody has to make a living; I’m content to focus on the fact that you’re a lying piece of shit incapable of honest debate. But I’m glad you showed up here to deposit that latest turd. Now I know that you’re properly apprised of what many on this board think of you, and have thought for the past nine years. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2018, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nice-try-fotheringay-phipps/497086/120 "2018-02-08T18:55:52Z")
He’s been around for nine years? Has it been that long since the Joe Paterno thread, which is where I first noticed him. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nice-try-fotheringay-phipps/497086.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nice-try-fotheringay-phipps/497086.md?page=7)