A disgusting vat of filth that no self-respecting intelligent person would wade into.

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Sam Brownback puts hold on judge for attending a friend's "commitment ceremony." Not for herself being in one, or participating in one. For attending one. Not for supporting one publicly. JFC.

Can't have a judge who likes faggits.

S_A_M

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I hear the Canadians "ration" health-care. Thanks to the glory of the free market, everyone in the United States gets as much health care as they want, right?

I don't know anything about the Canadian health care system, but I have participated in the British, French, Italian and Japanese Health care systems and they all sucked. I was a student in London, with not a lot of money, but after a few runs with the "NHS" I chose to pay for private health care because their system was almost medieval.

I spent Christmas day 2000 in the South Surrey Medical center, and I think most crack houses in the United States could provide a more sterile environment. I had to remind a nurse to sterilize a thermometer when she tried to put in my mouth. She took another patient's tempature and then tried to stick the same thermometer in mine without so much as wiping it off. Once I pointed this out to her she dipped it in some Alcohol and insisted she be allowed to stick in my mouth. I was tempted to cram it into another orifice of hers.

Even private Japanese hospitals don't shine a candle to ours. Our system may not be perfect, but it is by far the best in the western world, so we shouldn't even think about trying imitate anyone else’s. Universal health care would be nice, but if it means becoming more like any of these other systems, that would be a huge mistake.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
I think that now, with Rummy gone, we're starting to really hear publically what the military branches really think.

Remarkable change in the public airing of dissenting views -- began right after Rumsfeld announced his resignation.

S_A_M

P.S. Rumsfeld kept quite a lid on them, so its not at all clear to me that the President ever heard much in the way of the dissent/debate from the military side. I blame SecDef for that, but the President probably deserves some for not digging deeper.

I dunno. I think it's unreasonable to expect the POTUS to listen to something like General Shinseki's public testimony before Congress, shortly before the war, about the need for vastly more troops.

I mean, he would've had to take a day off from clearing brush, or maybe read a newspaper or something to be aware of that.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
I wonder if Dick Cheney has ever been to one of those.

I am pretty sure he went to his daughters.

[nononono]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
Oh -- I didn't realize that what you said was a joke.

Being funny might help tip people off. Keep that in mind next time.

Let me guess - it's that time of the month for you? Again? Man, your touch is as light as a lead balloon.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally posted by Spanky
I don't know anything about the Canadian health care system, but I have participated in the British, French, Italian and Japanese Health care systems and they all sucked. I was a student in London, with not a lot of money, but after a few runs with the "NHS" I chose to pay for private health care because their system was almost medieval.

I was also a poor student in the UK under NHS. I got great, great care on three occassions. Never a line, never a wait, and the scar over my right eyebrow from an unfortunate rugby accident is practically invisible. You would have thought the guy who put the stitches in (after a two minute wait in the office instead of a four hour wait in an ER, I literally walked into the office about ten minutes after the accident covered in blood and dripping) was a plastic surgeon rather than a GP.

[Diane_Keaton]

Oh, there goes Sean...he had to go and name-call. They say he can't help himself." But he asked: “Or, did I name-call? Maybe I just quickly summed up seven or eight little truths. Oh, no, you're right - I name-called. I said, ‘putz.’ I take it back. Or, do I? Did I say whore? Pimp? These are questions. But, the real and great questions of conscience and accountability would not loom so ominously -- unanswered or evaded at such tremendous cost -- without our day-to-day failure to insist on genuine accountability.

Christopher Reeve promised to get out of that chair. Well, I don't know about you, but it feels like he's up now and I wouldn't be standing here if it weren't on his shoulders. Let it be for something.

Besides Sean Penn himself (and maybe Lohan), can anyone else understand this? Is there ANY exception to the entertainer as dummy rule?

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Spanky
I don't know anything about the Canadian health care system, but I have participated in the British, French, Italian and Japanese Health care systems and they all sucked. I was a student in London, with not a lot of money, but after a few runs with the "NHS" I chose to pay for private health care because their system was almost medieval.

I spent Christmas day 2000 in the South Surrey Medical center, and I think most crack houses in the United States could provide a more sterile environment. I had to remind a nurse to sterilize a thermometer when she tried to put in my mouth. She took another patient's tempature and then tried to stick the same thermometer in mine without so much as wiping it off. Once I pointed this out to her she dipped it in some Alcohol and insisted she be allowed to stick in my mouth. I was tempted to cram it into another orifice of hers.

Even private Japanese hospitals don't shine a candle to ours. Our system may not be perfect, but it is by far the best in the western world, so we shouldn't even think about trying imitate anyone else’s. Universal health care would be nice, but if it means becoming more like any of these other systems, that would be a huge mistake.

I was in France earlier this year. While in Paris, my daughter got very sick (as in, stopped breathing for a few seconds). We called the equivalent of 911. Her breathing came back while we were calling, but it was raspy. Since it wasn't an emergency situation any longer, the operator said they wouldn't send an ambulance. Instead, they would send a doctor to our apartment.

Within 30 minutes, we had a doctor checking her, giving us prescriptions, and running a variety of tests. He also gave us some instructions to run tests ourselves (collect urine, dip an indicator strip of some sort in, bring a sample to a lab).

Since we are not French citizens, we of course had to pay -- 50 Euros. The meds -- three separate prescriptions (antibiotics, an emergency thing to thin the mucus if she had trouble breathing again, and something else that I forget) cost another 20 Euros.

A week or so later, we were in Avignon and I had the same bug my daughter had had. It wasn't as severe, just very annoying, and I wanted some meds to treat it. We tried to find a clinic, but it was late and none were open nearby. So we called the sub-emergency line, and they sent a doctor out. Once again, we had to pay 50 Euros.

In contrast, my wife recently tore several ligaments in her ankle. She called our doctor; they referred her to the Emergency Room. Since she had our daughter with her, she got treatment priority -- she only had to wait about half an hour. Despite having excellent (and expensive) health insurance, we had to pay a $100 co-payment.

After two weeks, her ankle was still very swollen and painful. She could not get an appointment with our primary care physician. She had to call back for several days in order to get a referral to a specialist. Unfortunately, the referral was to a shoulder specialist, but he kindly set her up with someone for her ankle -- who saw her a week or so later. This cost another hundred bucks, I think.




In sum, let me say that I don't know what the "best" system is -- I hesitate to draw too many conclusions from my own anecdotal experiences. But I question whether our system is really the best in the western world. I think that we do some things very, very well -- especially those things that deal with catastrophic problems, severe injuries, etc. I think that the low-level, general health maintenance stuff we tend to do very poorly, largely because insurance carriers know that regular visits to doctors, while beneficial to patients, can be detrimental to their bottom line.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by nononono
Let me guess - it's that time of the month for you? Again? Man, your touch is as light as a lead balloon.

That's rich, coming from you. Our little tiff about Kerry's stupid comment about the military happened over a month ago, yet you appear to be permanently stuck in "cunt" mode.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Spanky
I am pretty sure he went to his daughters.

Damn -- I guess the Christian right was correct. Once you let fags marry, you open the door to incest, too.

[nononono]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
That's rich, coming from you. Our little tiff about Kerry's stupid comment about the military happened over a month ago, yet you appear to be permanently stuck in "cunt" mode.

Settle down, little man.

etd pitying irritation and replace with amusement that you even remember what the "tiff" was about.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
I was in France earlier this year. While in Paris, my daughter got very sick (as in, stopped breathing for a few seconds). We called the equivalent of 911. Her breathing came back while we were calling, but it was raspy. Since it wasn't an emergency situation any longer, the operator said they wouldn't send an ambulance. Instead, they would send a doctor to our apartment.

Within 30 minutes, we had a doctor checking her, giving us prescriptions, and running a variety of tests. He also gave us some instructions to run tests ourselves (collect urine, dip an indicator strip of some sort in, bring a sample to a lab).

Since we are not French citizens, we of course had to pay -- 50 Euros. The meds -- three separate prescriptions (antibiotics, an emergency thing to thin the mucus if she had trouble breathing again, and something else that I forget) cost another 20 Euros.

A week or so later, we were in Avignon and I had the same bug my daughter had had. It wasn't as severe, just very annoying, and I wanted some meds to treat it. We tried to find a clinic, but it was late and none were open nearby. So we called the sub-emergency line, and they sent a doctor out. Once again, we had to pay 50 Euros.

In contrast, my wife recently tore several ligaments in her ankle. She called our doctor; they referred her to the Emergency Room. Since she had our daughter with her, she got treatment priority -- she only had to wait about half an hour. Despite having excellent (and expensive) health insurance, we had to pay a $100 co-payment.

After two weeks, her ankle was still very swollen and painful. She could not get an appointment with our primary care physician. She had to call back for several days in order to get a referral to a specialist. Unfortunately, the referral was to a shoulder specialist, but he kindly set her up with someone for her ankle -- who saw her a week or so later. This cost another hundred bucks, I think.




In sum, let me say that I don't know what the "best" system is -- I hesitate to draw too many conclusions from my own anecdotal experiences. But I question whether our system is really the best in the western world. I think that we do some things very, very well -- especially those things that deal with catastrophic problems, severe injuries, etc. I think that the low-level, general health maintenance stuff we tend to do very poorly, largely because insurance carriers know that regular visits to doctors, while beneficial to patients, can be detrimental to their bottom line.

does France have single pay? If so, maybe you were a nice extra 50 Euros so the doc came out. I just find it hard to believe that all of the poor people in the rioting suburbs of Paris can get a Doc out like this.

[Spanky]

Geopolitical Diary: Al-Samarraie's Second Prison Break

Former Iraqi Electricity Minister Ayham al-Samarraie broke out of prison the afternoon of Dec. 17, reportedly with the help of an American security company operating in Baghdad. It was al-Samarraie's second prison break from the heavily fortified Green Zone in the past two months.

Why would a U.S. security contractor help an Iraqi convict twice break out of jail? There is no clear answer, but a few conclusions can be drawn.

Al-Samarraie served as electricity minister under former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's interim government. Before that, he worked in Chicago as a manager at KCI Engineering, where he built up strong ties to the Republican Party before returning to Iraq after the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion. The United States enlisted al-Samarraie in the fall of 2002 to help create a State Department-funded postwar strategy for Iraq.

Al-Samarraie also is a Sunni with Iraqi-U.S. citizenship who draws his roots from Anbar province, the main hotbed of Sunni insurgent violence, which made him an attractive candidate for a ministry position. He cultivated an extensive network with prominent Sunni tribe leaders in Anbar, and has worked with U.S. and Iraqi officials to co-opt Sunni nationalist insurgents into the political process.

But al-Samarraie also had dollar signs in his eyes when he took the ministry position. Despite his critical links to the Sunni nationalist insurgency, al-Samarraie was convicted on one of 13 corruption charges and sentenced to a two-year jail term in October. He still has to face an Iraqi court for the remaining 12 charges for pocketing approximately $1.5 billion from phony construction contracts, which could very well link back to his business buddies in Chicago. Al-Samarraie's contacts in Washington, however, apparently agreed to give him a "get-out-of-jail-free card" in October, when a few armed American security officials snuck al-Samarraie out of the courtroom through a tunnel from the basement of the building and into a safe house in the Green Zone. After he told Arab satellite stations that he was in U.S. custody, U.S. officials reportedly returned al-Samarraie to the Iraqi prison guards for unknown reasons.

Over the next couple months, al-Samarraie asked U.S. and Iraqi officials to release him, saying Shiite gunmen would kill him while in custody. Shiite militiamen apparently tried to kill him and Allawi, who lives next-door to al-Samarraie, in September 2005; a car bomb was found behind Allawi's house. A roadside bomb also went off in February near al-Samarraie's convoy in Baghdad, wounding three of his bodyguards. Even before he went to jail, al-Samarraie hired a private U.S. security contractor for protection.

After spending less than two months in prison, al-Samarraie's pleas for freedom were answered Dec. 17, when a group of American security officials arrived in two GMC vehicles at the jail where he was incarcerated, held jail guards at gunpoint and then whisked the convict away without firing a shot, said Judge Radhi Radhi, a senior anti-corruption official in Iraq.

Al-Samarraie is evidently still important enough for U.S. security contractors to get the go-ahead and break him out of prison once again. His prison break comes at a time when Washington is desperate for solutions to help alleviate the sectarian violence in Iraq and bring some semblance of control to a foreign policy blunder that has largely paralyzed the U.S. military and government. Al-Samarraie may be a crook, but he also is a key figure in the Sunni political bloc that could aid the Americans in getting the Sunnis on board with a deal to co-opt more Baathists into the political system.

Al-Samarraie could have been released as part of a political bargain with the Sunni political leadership, or as a means of re-enlisting him to act as a go-between for the Americans to deal with the Sunni insurgents. Either way, we cannot help but notice that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced on Monday that his government has decided to welcome back former Sunni Baathists who served in the Iraqi army under Hussein's rein. The reintegration of Sunni Baathists is a major concession for the Shiite-dominated and Iranian-influenced government to make, which has a logical interest in ensuring that Sunnis are prevented from reasserting themselves politically or militarily in post-Hussein Iraq. Nonetheless, it appears that the Shia have taken a big step forward by throwing out this concession to the Sunnis. And if Washington wants this latest attempt at a political resolution to bear fruit, it will have to enlist the aid of influential Sunni mediators, such as al-Samarraie.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally posted by Spanky
Universal health care would be nice, but if it means becoming more like any of these other systems, that would be a huge mistake.

God fucking damnit. This is what I'm talking about. Every.Fucking.Single.Time. Universal Healthcare is mentioned, the horror stories from all over the world that have absolutely no bearing at all on the United States come out.

Start giving your Medicare horror stories and then I'll start listening to your moaning and groaning. Even better, start giving me your VA horror stories (and believe me, there are plenty), and I'll give a listen. And then I'll point out that because of the VA's electronic health records, it has some of the best care you can get anywhere. (see also the peer reviewed articles).

And people in the UK are healthier than people in the US, even taking socioeconomic status into account.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
Huh. You think the guy in a prison in Iraq had the same choice?

No, but in some regards, neither did I. Having a mortgage makes you think awfully hard before you quit a job on the spot. Sure, I could have looked for another job (in all my spare time) and quit once I found one, but that didn't help me after I was forced to bill 44 straight hours (no exageration).