tvashtarkatena

I can't help it, Porter just practically anime'd me to death.

This has got to be the Spray equivalent of a strategic nuclear strike.

Uncle-san, already.

There is a danger, however, that the government might be less inclined than the private sector to prescribe pain medication.

"Leave the gun, take the cannoli."

I'm not a medical doctor, but I suggest you stop taking yours.

i don't have one (green card). that leaves you with your dirty ass- just like your mom- beyotch! Note the 'euro' in 'euro shitsack'. If GGK were, by random chance, black, Shitfeather's term would have been '*'. If he were a woman.... Racism, misogyny, it's really all the same sentiment.

got to blame it on the wife. Climbing in Switzy and Dolomites beats the North Cascades and she knows I would climb more if I lived there. More choices. Better rock. Better access. To KKKY it's blaming your wife. To the rest of us it's simply respecting what's important to your wife.

I've been pretty impressed by the efficiency of a lot of government services. Licensing. Permitting (at least in my projects, which have been relatively straightforward), even the IRS (although I have't done this experiment, try not paying your taxes one year and see how efficient they can be). Most definitely emergency services, which are amazing. Limited government funding, political pressure, and mandated performance provides effective incentives for efficient operation.

I haven't decided yet if I would have had the surgery or not if I'd known about the cost. Wait until I can see the complete results of the work that was done and then I bet I will know the answer. In my case, there was no alternate procedure. The alternative would have been to continue living in constant pain, as I had for 8 years prior to having the work done. That said, I still don't know how the hell I'm going to pay for this. Shop around for the cost. Ask, "How much will this cost, and what do I get out of this?" In addition, don't just shop around in the US. See if going overseas to Singapore will benefit you too. I have heard of places like Singapore and Hong Kong that have US trained doctors. After you are done with the surgery, you get a 5 day vacation at the spa where you have the surgery. Find out how much it costs, talk to your insurance company and see if they would be willing to pay for your airfare too. Yes, this would be a very practical system for most Americans, especially since most plans require the selection of a primary care facility. "Get your procedures done in Singapore." Now why didn't the rest of us think of that?

You're a fat, limp dicked moron, Porter.

I'm hoping that the thermofitting process will mold them to my old shells, but we'll see. I'll fill you in when I do the experiment. As for your Scarpas, which are a bit wider in the toe area, I'd think you'd have a pretty good chance of being fine.

Wild ass guess: Dorado Needle?

There are two major philosophies behind the extreme opponents of single payer healthcare. 1) Government is always incompetent. 2) Those who consume a lot of health care are losers who should be made to pay their own way. 1) If, in fact, government is always incompetent (as compared to private industry), then why don't we outsource the most vital services, such as fire, police, military, transportation. Why do we heavily regulate utilities? If, in fact, private industry is SO MUCH MORE competent, how do we explain stock market crashes, Enron, the Big Three, and a long train of other corporate disasters in our history? 2) This argument usually comes from people who've never run up against the gross limitations of our health care system. The very minute they do, they're the first to start whining about it. For example, my father, who retired from 30 years of naval service, had several strokes and needed home nursing care. He was well covered health insurance-wise. No plan, federal or private, paid for this $1200/day cost. This is a guy who meticulously played by all the rules, who lived a life of service, and, in the end, his society was not there for him when he needed it most. In my view, this is clearly a system which is broken. A single payer system amortizes the cost for those with more expensive health care problems across the largest possible population. It also affords the highest bargaining leverage for health care goods and services. Finally, it is an essential (in my view) service; more so than police and fire, because we all need it at some point.

You state that like it's fact rather than opinion. You also state that like I don't get a significant ration of shit, including from you. I've taken potshots about my intellect, wife, values, body, lifestyle, veracity, you name it, but all from people who've never met me and who have absolutely no idea who I am. So why should I care? I don't. And neither should you. I can remember your first reply when I first started posting; very condescending, but even back then I recognized that as just part of the playground antics around here. We shouldn't take Spray too seriously; I certainly don't. Nothing that goes on here would prevent me from climbing with or lending a hand to anyone on this forum, although I certainly don't expect that feeling to be mutual in all cases. I think if you take the interchanges here in the tongue and cheek manner in which most of them are intended, you'll come away with a slightly different perspective. Or not. That's up to you. The point is it shouldn't, and probably doesn't, really matter much to you what I post Spray, while it is an exchange of ideas, is not the best forum for changing behavior, if that's what you're attempting to do with this post. Personal interchanges are required for that. I made some great friends at CC, but to those here who don't really know me, I am, or at least should be, just another avatar.

I'll be there a little late. Thanks for the posting, Matt.

Failing to get a common joke for this forum is even less so, my dear.

Apropos, as Veteran's Day falls on Armistice Day, which celebrates the end of an even bigger waste of human life and resources that the current conflicts the U.S. is now responsible for starting. We celebrate sacrifice in war as if it were blasphemous to question why the war had to occur in the first place. This represents one of many forms of glorification for the very lowest of human behaviors. We should be much more selective in what we glorify and what we simply regret in this area.

I wouldn't laugh too hard, KKKY. Your cookie cutter software job can and probably will be outsourced to India or elsewhere with a snap of a manager's finger. Marylou's will never be.

No. If I wanted to lay blame, I'd blame the 2 guys who got in bad car accidents afer falling asleep at the wheel on their drives home, the guy who had prostate cancer, and the guy who had a hip replacement. They have driven the costs up for our group, so it must be "their" fault. If I wanted to blame "the union" for it, I suppose I could say that rather than negotiating pay freezes for us so we could put that money toward our health care, that they negotiate a pay CUT in order to increase that %. So no, there's not really a way to blame the union for spiraling health care costs. It's our own damn fault for having to use our insurance. All health care costs are spiraling, not just those for unions. From a theoretical standpoint, the larger the pool of people covered under a health care plan, the more the costs of that plan for those who use it can be amortized, the more buying leverage the plan has, and thus, the cheaper the plan is. It's no surprise that health care for unions has increased if, and I'm not sure if this is actually happening or not, unions have gotten smaller and more fragmented.

You're assuming that "doing whatever the fuck I want", just because it did in your case, doesn't include helping others. It does. And it's arguable that you are "helping others" in your particular line of government service. The disastrous policies that you're 'helping' haven't helped matters very much. Frankly, the world was better off when you stayed home and did nothing but fuck off. So your life during that period sucked. Mine doesn't. It's always best to stick to managing what's on one's own plate. Particularly when one can't see what's on another's. Oh, and I only post via my original avatar. Sorry to dissappoint.

The only explanation for Sexual Chocolate I've been able to come up with is that, at some point, JayB and V7 must have been trapped in the same gene splicer.

So I'm not the only one who had absolutely no fucking idea what the guy was trying to say. But one thing's for sure: they're still called wasps. I wonder if Shitfeather delivers Pepsi to private mansions? I tip well.

Interesting indeed...and important to have top of mind as context for his paradigm. Let me guess..... "Higher ordinary income tax for the upper middle class and upper class wage earners (I'm living off investments and more impacted by capital gains)" "The government should provide healthcare (I could have cared less 3-years ago but now I'm self employed by choice)" "American capitalism is the enemy (but it wasn't 4 years ago when the capital markets made my options a windfall)" Nope. I've been for universal health care, same tax rate for capital gains, and properly regulated capitalism all along. I know it's hard for you and yours to conceive of a person who doesn't vote their wallet, but there you have it. I'm not really sure what 'top of mind in context for his paradigm' means...not all that bright enough, don't you know. I also love the instant assumption by those who worship (and resent) wealth most that 'financially independent' means rich.

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