vandy125

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jul 29, 2009 -> 12:36 PM) I'm all for shifting the profits currently directed at insurers (because I see no innovation incentives there) to doctors and researchers. Why should the insurance (not provider, care, hospital, research, etc) industry be for-profit? I just did a quick search on the percentage of health insurance plans that come from for-profit vs the non-profit and found this out: Non-Profit Stats So, that seems to me to point that a good percentage of health insurance companies are not out there focusing on profits. Granted, I did not follow through completely on the source of the information from that web site (Primary AIS's Directory of Health Plans: 2008), but it does seem to be legit.

YES!!!!!!

QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ Jul 21, 2009 -> 09:39 AM) I just don't agree with cracking down on one thing and leaving so many essentially the same activities unregulated. Look, if i'm driving into NYC or it's a windy road or it's raining/snowing I don't take my eyes off the road for a second. But if I'm on the highway and not many people are around me or I'm on some side street I have no qualms responding to a text. I don't type out novels but if it's quick I'll do it and while I'm doing so I am not endangering anyone, including myself. I can see how at times it can be dangerous, but not moreso than countless other activities that are not being cracked down upon. But as for talking on a cellphone, I really don't see why people get so up in arms about that. You're watching the road afterall. It's no different than the mother yelling at her young children in the back seat, the woman late for work so doing her makeup in the mirror, the guy too proud to ask for directions trying to read a map and drive or anyone adjusting CD's in the stereo, fiddling with the GPS, searching through the iPod, trying to light a cigarette, etc...I rarely have a need to talk on the cell while driving, but it really bugs me that when I do I have to try and do so incognito and get all paranoid about getting pulled over for it. In my opinion, it is too regulated, especially since you can do pretty much anything else you'd like while driving, some of which IMO is much more dangerous. There are several studies out there that indicate that driving while even talking on a hands-free cell phone connection is at the same level as drunk driving. The thing that you are missing out on with those examples you cite (adjusting CDs, etc) is how long those things take to do. Usually those are quick things while talking on a cell phone tends to happen for a longer period of time. Don't most of your conversations last longer than it takes to do any of those other things? Here is the first article that I pulled up. You can find tons of them: Utah Study Here is a point that it makes at the end kind of stating what I just said: I know that I can always pick out cell phone users pretty quickly while driving. They are so much slower to react to everything around them.

Why oh why must the first game after the break be on WCIU?

Shouldn't there be an option for the superstitious who only pick it up when Lincoln is facing up? I usually just leave em.

QUOTE (Tex @ Jul 10, 2009 -> 10:01 AM) Biters? Is there anything better than suddenly finding a longish nail that somehow was overlooked? How many just looked to see if they had one after seeing this? I know I did.

Is it a weird thought to have our health insurance set up more like auto insurance? People shop around all the time for auto insurance. I like the thought of it being a requirement for individuals to have health insurance, and I would rather not have the government involved in what is basically a larger form of Medicare/Medicaid [green] since that has turned out to have plenty of cash and runs so well [/green]. One other thing that I have noticed in this conversation is that several posters are talking about how all of these health insurance companies are looking to make the biggest profit. Well, that may be true for companies that have to report to their stock holders, but there are many out there that are non-profit companies. They work for their policy holders and do not shoot for a profit.

I usually find it annoying when I am talking with someone and their phone rings or they get a text and they answer it. Seriously, I'm standing right in front of you, what makes that person so much more important? They haven't even taken the time to meet you, why do they take priority? Call them back later, or excuse yourself then go and talk to them if you really think it is important.

Yeah, I completely missed the whole thing because YouTube took it down...

Hawk and Stoney are awesome. It is good to have someone in there that can balance Hawk with some insights.

BA with a 2nd SB... Good to see

Nice pick by Josh!

THOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sounds pretty cool. I'll give it a try when I get home today.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Apr 3, 2009 -> 05:21 PM) Our society did not want to accept minorities as equals. Yep, and I completely agree that is something that was rightly ruled on against the popular beliefs of that time. I never said and never will say that society is always right with its popular opinion, merely that our beliefs do shape our laws.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 3, 2009 -> 04:35 PM) Again, environmental laws can be argued to be a terrible example. Really easy one. The Clean air act. Or the clean water act. Or the endangered species act. Whatever. It is simple to argue that those laws exist in no small part because not having them is a detriment to all of us. Most people don't want PCB's in their water. Or to be downing liters of mercury because there's a coal plant near by. Or to have the ecosystem for a dozen species die off because a key predator was removed and the environment in the area went crazy. In virtually every case, there is a negative outcome for at least a group of people or for the country as a whole if you don't have those laws. You are interfering with my right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness if you're constantly trying to give me cancer. Gay Marriage does not. That all depends on what you think about gay marriage. I was looking to not take a stance on it here, but I'll try and show the negative (that I am not yet fully convinced of) since you are taking the positive. It has already been argued that there is a financial cost to gay marriage due to insurance, blah, blah, etc (of course this is debatable too). There is also the argument that it leads our whole society to accept something that many people do not want to accept (again not saying whether or not that is a good thing). You believe it does not infringe on other people, others would disagree. It is a matter of what you believe and that is what gives us our laws. I don't think anything that we do is done in a bubble. There are repercussions for everything that we do that affect those around us. So, it matters as to whether or not you believe that those repercussions are large enough or not to put into law. I'm not going into a full out huge dissertation on this because frankly I think that there needs to be a split between religious view of marriage and government marriage. As our government sits, we are not supposed to be sanctioning religious ideals.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 3, 2009 -> 04:16 PM) This is a terrible example. If you run a red light, you're clearly impinging upon my rights to, you know, live. The rules regarding red lights are more than beliefs, they're basic structures set up in society so that we aren't accidentally killing each other. If we didn't follow those rules, then either society wouldn't function as it currently does because no one would drive given the 50/50 chances of dying, or we'd run out of cemetery space. No one died after the first gay people got married. Gay people getting married does not impinge upon my rights to live my life any way I want. It does not affect my life, liberty, or pursuit of happiness, to borrow a phrase. Hey, I just grabbed the first example that came to mind. Would you rather I use the example of laws that need to be set down for environmental causes? Those are all based upon beliefs as well. We may put a bunch of laws into place when many people disagree as to whether or not we can have an affect on the global environment, which btw I think that we can and do. Same principal. Our laws are based upon what we believe.

QUOTE (TheBigHurt @ Apr 3, 2009 -> 01:10 PM) If you're not gay then it simply doesn't concern you, so I don't see why it is such big deal. I think religion is the biggest thing, but no one has to abide by someone else's beliefs. I don't think homosexuality is right but I fully support gay marriage. Let the people be happy for Chrissakes. There's just no logical reason not to. I don't think that you can argue it that way. There are ways to argue for or against gay marriage, but you can't say that beliefs have no place. Beliefs that are held firmly by our society are put down into laws. For example, I believe that we all need to stop at red lights. We all pretty much agree with that one and set it down as law. We put those beliefs into law for many reasons (financial, physical, emotional, etc harms that they can cause). This is one that affects a lot of people for various reasons.

Awesome work!

Thanks for pointing this out! I have a couple of Blu-Ray movies that I also have the DVDs for. I'm going to swap those for something else.

QUOTE (BearSox @ Mar 14, 2009 -> 08:45 PM) I really don't care much about Illinois any more. First chance I get, I'm out of this sorry excuse for a state. It could be a great state and Chicago could be better than a "2nd city", but with the enormous amount of corruption here that's been going on for so very long, it's tough to see any light ahead. I view Pat Quinn as basically a lap dog being used to raise the taxes, get booted out of office after this term is up, and leaving the door wide open for Michael's daughter to become governor. Just a point off of this, I would hope that you know where the term "2nd city" came from... From Wikipedia: And back to the tax discussion... Iowa is 31st as far as taxes go, right behind Illinois. I think that the government was looking at laying off a bunch of people because they also were unprepared for the stock market plummet (as many people were).

QUOTE (qwerty @ Mar 6, 2009 -> 08:17 PM) There were many more morons on the bus than just that lunatic. The attempts to stop him were just pathetic. Pathetic is not even the right word. Their response afterwords were just as good:

Bachelors Degree Double Major in Computer Science and Religion Double Minor in Math and Philosophy

Good to see one of these again.

QUOTE (Texsox @ Feb 12, 2009 -> 09:03 AM) Did I read 18,000 man made objects!? Wow. I'd have taken the under at 6,000 Just the one satellite that China blew up added about 1,600 pieces of debris that are being tracked now. China Satellite Debris So, in that one instant, they added 10% of the debris that is up there.