Balta1701

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 15, 2010 -> 01:18 PM) Lame assertation that young male assistants can't be hos as well. Maybe it's just me, but I'm not seeing how that's a corollary to BS's point.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 15, 2010 -> 01:13 PM) I don't see where Diddy and the GOP have the same stance on Hos. Keep looking.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Nov 15, 2010 -> 12:38 PM) I believe it's quite a drive from Nashville to the mountains, but I would suggest you try it if you have the chance. 2.5-3 hours or so depending on traffic. December can be kinda rough though, the roads and passes will snow themselves shut.

It's not partisan, but it's a good read and this is sorta the thread I dominate so I'm going to share it. The Post has a 2-day, long, investigation piece on the Mumbai attacks, including detailing some of the Pakistani government connections and the activities of a U.S. citizen. Part 1. Part 2

QUOTE (T R U @ Nov 15, 2010 -> 12:42 PM) Are they ever gonna get Rubio or did he wash his hands of Minnesota They will still hold his rights when his contract in Spain winds up, I believe.

Link

QUOTE (MHizzle85 @ Nov 15, 2010 -> 11:18 AM) I'm not sure if this has been addressed or not...but what happened to The Diamond Club & some of the catch-all threads here in SLaM? Our site owner doesn't like "Clutter" and he doesn't like pinned threads. TDC has briefly closed for the winter, and all baseball talk has been combined into a single forum.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 15, 2010 -> 11:11 AM) God NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Hello, McFly, you're in favor of cutting his taxes, remember?

QUOTE (jasonxctf @ Nov 15, 2010 -> 11:22 AM) good topic. some crossover's here too. For ex here in Illinois, you've got the University of Illinois at Chicago which also has a hospital/medical center. Would you privatize both, none, some, parts, etc? Isn't the reason that a lot of universities run their own hospital that the university also runs a medical school, and therefore they can dovetail everything together and use the same resources?

(Small favor, please include a link when excerpting text).

QUOTE (FlaSoxxJim @ Nov 15, 2010 -> 07:56 AM) Don't scrap it, even if you can't approach it with the same mathematics of your other lists. Punt the lists to one of us who expressed an interest in pitching in on beer summaries and we can figure out how to share info and rate picks. You could also do a 2nd round of voting. Winnow it down to the top 40, send that list around to the people who voted (and to anyone else who asks to get in) and ask them to rank solely from that group.

Now we know why 2k5 is a Republican...

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Nov 15, 2010 -> 08:26 AM) The owner-come-renter idea is problematic on multiple fronts. For one thing, you are forcing banks to become something they aren't, and will be really bad at, which will be bad for everyone involved. For another thing, you just pretty much told the Owner that they can now do whatever they want to with the home with nearly no reprecussions, which will have some bad endings. Also, there is huge potential for abuse by banks here against renters in that scenario. I understand it's problematic. But my counterpoint is...that's already all happening now. There is huge abuse by banks of homeowners happening right now. Banks are becoming landlords right now, they're just doing so with vacant houses rather than full ones. And if I trash my apartment, there are plenty of civil and criminal options available to a landlord that aren't there if the home is vacated and I break into it to strip the copper. It's not a perfect option, but it's still an upgrade over where we are now. Anyway, it has zero chance of passing since the banks would say no, so at best it's an academic exercise.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Nov 15, 2010 -> 08:29 AM) Incorrect. Basically, I'm referring to the tip of the media, who like both.

Tim Tebow is writing a memoir. I just had to put that here.

Larger text may help him.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Nov 14, 2010 -> 09:57 PM) the deficits piss people off more then the wars, even. You're right. And for once, I'm going to cite polling data that agrees with you completely. Twice as many people care about the deficit in polling as do the wars. (Nobody ever actually cares about the deficit. Nobody. Even the people who insist they care will chuck it out the window if they have to have their own taxes go up or if it costs them their jobs. They care if their taxes are going up or if they have jobs or not. Right now, they have no jobs. Even the people who wrote this chairman's report don't care about the deficit. They care about the vision of America they put together, not the deficit.)

Fast and quick as shadows they must be.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 14, 2010 -> 07:52 PM) I don't remember Danks being in the deal. I remember it being Gio, Fields, De Los Santos, and Lance Broadway. Yeah...the reason the Sox didn't get that done is that they wouldn't give up Danks and the Marlins weren't interested in Floyd.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Nov 14, 2010 -> 07:39 PM) From what I read, you usually dodged arguments about cost reduction. You were more concerned with the insurance companies 3% profit margin. As far as caps, I am talking about procedural caps (a procedure or visit type has a cost cap), not a cap as far as how much medicare cost a patient incurs over a lifetime. These types of procedure caps have been proven to be effective cost regulation measures in other countries. Of course, if a patient wants to go outside of medicare, they are free to spend as they please. Ok, my answer is whiskey and challenging you to a fight. I dodged arguments about cost reduction? I'm offended by that. The problem with insurance companies is not the profit margin...it's the overhead. They increase that profit margin slightly by spending enormous additional amounts on overhead. Even more effective cost regulation in other countries has been found by having single-payer systems. They streamline everything, reduce paperwork, and massively reduce overhead at just about every level, and provide solid cost control by enabling effective preventative care. Yeah, they occasionally deny certain types of care, but you've just accepted that as necessary for our system anyway. Yeah, the U.S. is a different system, but you've just argued that there's something to learn from the way other countries do it. When developing countries are building systems from scratch, they keep going single-payer for good reason; it's cheaper per person and more effective for everyone except for the top of the top; which is where our system wins.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Nov 14, 2010 -> 07:22 PM) Most countries that have big government programs paying for programs like medicare have caps. Obviously the US does not. Look at the cost per capita we spend. It's nearly twice as much as other countries which would be considered in the same economic class as the US. You're kidding, after the last 1.5 years of political discussion, you're using the "the U.S. spends 2x as much per capita on health care as any other country" as an argument against me? As though I didn't know that? After the last year? I have an urge to faint. Or like down a half liter of Whiskey and then challenge you to a fight. I'm not sure which. Probably both. Anyway, yes, the U.S. pays 2x as much as everyone else for worse health care. We spent about a year and a half arguing about why. I certainly have seen zero evidence that the lack of a long term cap drives the cost higher. I can argue against it; in the private insurance market, most plans did have lifetime caps, and the private sector insurance continued to cost more per person than Medicare, and continued to grow at higher rates. If the key flaw in our system was the lack of a lifetime cap, then Medicare should be really and truly exploding compared to the private sector, to the point that nothing else can overwhelm it.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Nov 14, 2010 -> 07:12 PM) Certain types of caps are important and need to be reasonable. The highest paid doctors and hospitals will take a hit though. The problem is...a lot of times, how do you decide which hospitals and doctors are highly paid because they're the best ones, or because they're the only options in an area? In reality...the real problem is that we established last year that no one will tolerate having the government make the decision about which doctors will be paid for, or which doctors will have to take a hair cut. We'd never have passed anything had that been proposed.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Nov 14, 2010 -> 06:50 PM) I disagree. Allowing medicare costs to increase at this pace is unsustainable. Cap the growth rate, increase the supply of doctors / care providers with legal immigration (you aren't a xenophobe are you?), crack down on fraud, ect. I think it is becoming very clear we need to cut medicare costs. It isn't really a fanciful option, it is a necessity. I'd actually be in favor of increasing the number of visas. That's a worthwhile tactic. Cracking down on Fraud...that's being done constantly. The idea that there are substantial cost savings there is silly. Every reform package includes a fraud crackdown. Every candidate campaigns on eliminating fraud. Everyone tries. It happens, but it's just not a huge number. The one thing that isn't going to work though is any sort of cap on expenses or anything that forcibly denies care based solely on cost. No one will ever get that passed, nor should they.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Nov 14, 2010 -> 06:53 PM) i support those panels. Unless Obama proposes them.

QUOTE (DBAHO @ Nov 14, 2010 -> 06:40 PM) Very good start for the Jason Garratt era so far. Best we've been this season by a huge margin. The Giants really seem like one of those teams that only wakes up when they're facing a challenge. They weren't up for the game but they started off behind, and they've played a much better 3rd quarter. Could just be too late.