"are worthy of tax payer money": As far as I know, most of these ayurvedic/homeopathy institutes (both for education as well as treatment) do not receive public funding.
I am talking about the model and not how it was implemented. Hypothetically speaking there is a difference between the three models: a) provide the same to all, b) Let everyone fend for themselves, and c) Provide a basic livelihood to all and allow the ones capable of earning more to do so.
USSR was different where everyone was eligible or provided with the same whereas the poster talks about providing some basic livelihood to all and allowing those who can earn more to continue to earn more and live better.
True, there are leaches too. But the goal to ensure that everyone has a basic level of living standard is in the direction of what the OP talks about. Note that this is different from the systems implemented in USSR where everyone was provided the same, regardless of their skills or efforts.
A similar model is being followed in Europe where the unemployed, disabled, recent mothers and the poorer people are provided some sort of basic support by the state. The higher earning people have extra cash to live more comfortably.
How does such a model work for tasks where you need to perform long term planning? Similar to national elections, such a model could result in policies being changed every time a new manager is in place.
The reason for Facebook's popularity is its simpleness. Now that it is popular, it can experiment with additional features such as groups and more intimate group settings. Orkut, on the other hand attempted to do it the other way around. I am not sure how does it work now, but 2-3 years back, when one adds a friend, he is expected to rate the closeness in a scale of 1-5. This was to improve friend of friend suggestions as well as who is allowed to see what. The problem with this approach was that it was confusing for the users. This might be a stumbling block for new applications that try to foster a private group structure. But I do agree with Dave that there is a need for such applications.
Currently living in Europe and having visited many of the European cities, I find Vienna to the best among them too. This is a really generous offer and one could save a lot of money.
I usually prefer making it smaller. As much as possible, I try to write the content in the subject, to make it easy for the receiver to decide if it is important enough to reply or not. I do write longer mails when necessary, but I find that the short version suffices in most cases.
Amazing feat. But funny to ponder about the fact that it took 14 years of work to save 1.5 hours of travel time. On a serious note, Hats off to such forward-thinking people.
By the way, I did not disagree with the results of the study. I agreed to it by stating my personal feeling instead of going by the article, since the article didn't mention the study in detail.
There is a third choice: "I care, but please bring a better case-study". As stated above, the gist of my argument is that all are born equal, it is the society and the stereotypes that shape them.
I believe that money spent on education is money well spent. Building schools and etc, not only help to educate the young generation, but also provide jobs. An educated young man will be able to not only help himself, but his family and his surroundings.