Taro T

Well, if he's not part of the solution, he'd pretty much have to be part of it.

Sorry. My bad. My reading of your posts through the years made me believe that you are more conservative than the typical journalist (and I still believe that to be true, apologies again if I am mistaken there); after reading your follow-up post to the one I am quoting I realize I went too far in my post. I should have written that you make me look almost like a moderate.

LA, this is making for a very interesting discussion. I understand what you are saying, and do see where posting here could alter the perception some have of john, I just don't see it affecting the perception of very many. (Of course, that's coming from my own bias, I don't have an issue with him posting here; maybe there are a greater %age of people that share your opinion than I'd expect.) Newspaper writers tend to lean towards the liberal end of the spectrum (of course there are the handful like Lori that make me appear to be a liberal), so seeing the posts from john isn't surprising (well, other than the fact he will post here, THAT is mildly surprising) and don't lower my opinion of his professionalism. He'd have to put some of his PPP work into his AP work for it to affect my opinion the work he does in his day job. Much as Bruce Cockburn being an unabashed communist doesn't make him a non-entertaining singer and Charlton Heston's NRA gig and Sean Penn's idiocy don't alter my perception of their acting; Mr. Wawrow being playing a full-blown liberal loon doesn't detract from his work for the AP and in fact it makes for some entertaining reading here on PPP. I really enjoy reading his AP articles and get a kick out of reading what he writes here as well. His unabashedly assuming the role of the drunk Canuck is pretty cool too.

Actually more like a Zappa song.

It's a pretty safe bet that you aren't.

Yep.

Sorry, but that started going on back in the late '70's / early '80's; long before the "fairness doctrine" got punted.

Al-ban-i-a, Al-ban-i-a, you sit on the Ad-ri-at-ic.

OK, the tide rolls in a couple of feet each day over ~12 hours. Unless you have an extremely wide turbine you aren't going to experience a lot of force with which to generate a lot of electricity. Niagara Falls has ~170 ft of drop. With 6 MM cu ft of water flowing over it every minute. Unless you have a turbine a few miles wide, you won't come close to the force you can generate at the falls.

Sheesh. You are getting a little out there w/ this one. It's called a "reasonable doubt" for a reason. Before any testing on the car was performed, perhaps you give her the benefit of the doubt. Now that there is nothing wrong with the car (other than it having run into a wall), the onus is on her. But if you're going to get existential, can we even be certain that your spelling error was caused by you and not your computer. I think you'd be able to guess my answer to that question.

You're not defending her, but you fall down on the side of consumer protectionism even when those consumers are faking it. Just how much money would you have given the old guy that found his own insulin needle in his Coke can?

This is an example of one of the problems with the system that was created by govt. By making health insurance costs deductible to a company but not to individuals buying health insurance for themselves, most people get their insurance through their employers (and because so many do, employer plans tend to have broader risk pools than when individuals do try to get it on their own, so it becomes that much cheaper for an employer to provide the insurance) and those people end up at the mercy of what their employer chooses for plans. This part of the system could have been fixed without requiring a 2,000+ page bill. Out of curiosity, are the 3 still employed at that company? My condolences go out to them.

And "health care" is not what this new law means when it refers to "health care." This law only covers insurance. I am well aware of what "non profit" means when referring to a corporate entity. And that word "does not mean what he thinks it means." Finally, I hope you are only around 25, because if you're up around 40 and never made more than you did when you were 21, that kind of stinks.

So what are appropriate expenses for a Dr to have, and what are appropriate expenses for a PA to have? No, but you state that "[h]ealthcare should be non-profit." That being the case, they should provide the healthcare at a rate that equals their expenses. Right? And what rate of return should a company like Johnson and Johnson get to make medical devices which get used in healthcare? What should Pfizer's ror be? What is the incentive for them to expend money in the healthcare field when "healthcare should be non-profit" but other industries are for profit?

Your wife's company's insurance company (as do all the others) sets premiums such to make a profit off the TOTAL $'s expected to be expended in a particular year (or other relatively short time period). They used their experience and actuarial tables to estimate what that would be and then pooled the payment out to all the members of the insurance pool (apparently the risk pool for her company is the company's employees and their families). While the risk was there that some within the risk pool would get cancer, which can be astonishingly expensive to treat; it looks like the probabilities that were used were either incorrect, or the employees were just "unluckier" than would have been expected. Either way, if you want the insurance company to continue to provide coverage to your wife's company, they are going to have to get premiums from the members of the risk pool large enough to cover the total expected expenditures (which are now significantly higher with 3 people being treated for cancer than they were in previous years). You claim the insurance company will NEVER lose money, but they most likely did last year; and to keep from losing money this year, they raised the rates. Those premiums that were "faithfully" paid in years past were used, primarily, to pay for the health care of everybody else in the pool in those years. That is the entire point of a "risk pool," everybody puts in a relatively small amount of money, but more that the healthy people would be expected to pay in a particular year to cover the people that do end up getting sick. And, as an aside, if you want to get an idea of the probability of an event happening, price out insurance on the event. If you are afraid your house worth $200k might burn down, and the insurance to cover replacement costs $2.2k; then factoring a 10% profit, there would roughly be a 1% chance that your house will be destroyed. (Not quite exactly correct, as there are things that could happen to your house that would damage it without destroying it, but that's roughly how it works.) The insurance companies work in a competitive environment. A single company can't take you to the cleaners because the next guy will sell you a policy cheaper than the 1st one.

So doctors, nurses, PA's, PT's, pharmacists should all be benevolent and work for free?

It should be good enough. She isn't an evil corporation, so her having intended to press the brake should be equivalent to her having pressed the brake. Actually, Toyota should be expected to pay for ALL damage she caused (and maybe double or treble, just because they're evil), because being the evil corporation that it is, it should have known that someday an unfortunate individual would make such a readily expectable and easily curable problem. Heck, she should get additional compensation for the trauma Toyota caused her by having its electronic gas pedal control her mind and make her press it to the floor when she wanted to brake.

And another case of faulty accerators is proven. Linky OK, well this one is driver error, but I'm certain EVERY other one was due to faulty accelerators.

So where are Hedd, Conner, pBills, Deb, etc telling us what a wonderful thing we'll have imposed upon us this weekend?

Not sure what Riker would have done, I'd expect Picard would have hit it.

He sure wouldn't have played chess with something that hideous.

Am I the only one that saw this thread title and thought "that'd make a good title for a Star Trek episode?" The Tholian Web; The Pelosian Construct. Hopefully Kirk gives the Pelosians hell in the end.

Yes, it should be. And as far as I can tell it has been adhered to (at least in this particular matter). I dislike almost all of the policies that are supported by this administration. But with so many legitimate issues to criticize it for, I don't see the point of harping on his alleged non-US citizenship. All that can come of it is the Bishop Hedds of the world gain some credibility in their claims that people oppose him just to oppose him. And the Bishop Hedds of the world are more batshit loony than most any "Birther" could ever hope to be.

That's what's scary. They aren't dead, but they should be (at least in this current incarnation). Until the stake has been driven through the heart of the health care/insurance/whatever they want to call it reform bill, it ain't dead.

But wait a sec, didn't Lofton and White used to play for Green Bay? Mr. Wisconsin must have had a heck of a time w/ that. All those guys messin' up Coach Lombardi's squad.