rabu

26 views and one reply..hmmm.. either a lot are afraid to express themselves or have nothing to say? OK, your's would nicely fit in, "I have another opinion, which is.." and I thank you for answering, it covers a lot of ground and is well thought out too. I actually don't expect an answer, or one answer, I doubt there is one, I just would like to see what people think, or which way they tend to lean in thinking, and this isn't a quiz, just trying to introduce a subject to talk about and see what people think or have thought about the general subject of this. Hope others will chime in.

I don't think they are that bad.. you're setting your self up though.. let's see the extrodinary new ones?

Catch: I really enjoyed your "movie" ..excellent! Looks like you put a lot of work into it and we thank you! I like the way you were able to tie all the differnt parts you saved into a cohesive whole story line, it really worked smoothly.

Well, If you aren't open to other explinations, what's the point? I've heard both sides and from what I've read the supporting side makes more sense. And this isn't about winning an argument, but I've been amazed at all the slamming, mud slinging, and mis information that has been taking place in this whole issue, and yea, it is about greed, and power, why do you think these huge conglomerates have been pouring so much money into fighting it? These expenses are all projections, no one knows for sure. But the fact is the lack of a health care system is costing us a lot more then the 500 Billion you're worried about and there are many others who could give you other projections showing savings based on the larger contribution base, the savings in jobs and lives lost, etc., etc. The main thing is we finally have a health care plan. It's a start and it has a lot of good things going for it that many people desperately needed. It's going to hopefully be improved if people stay interested and insist on improvements. If people stay involved in pressuring congress to make more and better changes, but it's going to be really difficult because the battle is against the huge corporate medial monster that doesn't want the freedom they've abused weakened, very difficult, but it's a start.

Your article, that you indirectly linked to, was from The Wall Street Journal.. kind of makes you think, doesn't it? And I guess that gets us back on course with the subject of this thread.. greed?

Hi, Duce, if you had followed some of my links you would have picked up on this, or maybe you just skimmed over things. The figures can be very misleading. Slowing down the growth of overall spending in Medicare does not necessarily imply cuts in benefit levels or services. ""Whether these are "cuts" or much-needed "savings" depends on the political expedience of the moment, it seems. When Republican Sen. John McCain, then a presidential candidate, proposed similar reductions to pay for his health care plan, it was the Obama camp that attacked the Republican for cutting benefits. Whatever you want to call them, it’s a $500 billion reduction in the growth of future spending over 10 years, not a slashing of the current Medicare budget or benefits. It’s true that those who get their coverage through Medicare Advantage’s private plans (about 22 percent of Medicare enrollees) would see fewer add-on benefits; the bill aims to reduce the heftier payments made by the government to Medicare Advantage plans, compared with regular fee-for-service Medicare. The Democrats’ bill also boosts certain benefits: It makes preventive care free and closes the "doughnut hole," a current gap in prescription drug coverage for seniors."" (Click here for more on this) You're right about internet information, you have to carefully judge by its history what the sites general standing has been, whether it's got an agenda or biased in one way or the other. The links I gave I have found consistantly look at both sides and report fairly. As for TV News, CBS has really lost it's credibility in the last several years.. it's not so much what they report as it is what they leave out, even CNN has been less then reliable, turing more and more to sensationalism in it reports, and FOX, of course, is a joke.. they should rename it the Rush channel. About the only accurate news reporting I've seen consistanly has been on the Public network PBS channel.

Q: Did Obama loan $2 billion to Brazil’s oil company to benefit China and George Soros? A: The president had nothing to do with the loan, which the Export-Import Bank approved for Brazil to buy U.S.-made equipment and services. This claim stems from a "preliminary committment" made back on April 14 by the board of directors of the Export-Import Bank of the United States. The bank intends to loan up to $2 billion to finance exports to the Brazilian oil company Petróleo Brasileiro S.A., known as Petrobras, over the next several years. Again, you're off base.. read this (click here) for the truth about the Brizalian loans. Oh, and by the way.. your article was from The Wall Street Journal.. kind of makes you think, doesn't it.. or does it? I hope you can.

Uncleal: It's a conspiracy, it's a conspiracy!... You're too much! Here's the actual time line (click).. yes, things take time, I'd love it to be instant too, who wouldn't? There was a lot of bartering with big business insurance interests to even get this watered down version passed, with delays in their favor.

Yep, I agree, and most politicians are lawyers, but there are many who also want the best for the rest of humanity and work in that direction, if there weren't this country would have turned into a monarchy by now with the continuation of the economic ripoff the last administration had conned us into.

Sorry, Duce, I've got to make a comment here, you seem to be parroting every bad rumor about the bill and it's consequences and totally ignoring the facts that are actually known. Yes, it needs a lot of improvement, but it's a first step and does have a lot of really good things going for it. Here are just a few reputable links to non partisan sites that talk more about the bill with out an agenda: Probably the most honest and well respected reporting is by the Monitor and this recent article on how it will affect the economy (click here) FactCheck.Org has also been reliable in non biased reporting, correcting misleading and false statements on all sides: Top recent health care Falsehoods (click here) and on U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop's statments (click here) Brest cancer lies by the organizer of the Tea Party movement (click here) Voting for a Health Care Takeover? (click here) 26 Lies about HR 3200 (click here) PolitiFact.com tends to investigate and report fairly also exposing both sides of issues that are true, or misleading or untrue: Health Care statements analyzed for truth (click here) Thier ObamaMeter of facts(click here) Just thought some of you might like to read some informative articles instead of some of the intentional, or unintentional, misleading rumors floating around. Oh, and on your Texas Tort reform and its implications: (click here)

Ahh.. sorry, Ucleal, now I understand. I just realized who you are.. you're Joe the Plumber's brother, right?

My brother had a Citroen when he was in college, looked very similar to your photo. He loved to show off the adjustable air suspension that he could adjust in height for the type of driveing.

Now it's starting to get ugly.. Uncleal, you've already demostrated your biased outlook from your earlier posts stating that you only read what you want and then linking to extremely biased, negative websites. Let's keep things clean here, OK?

I'm almost embarrassed to say it.. did any one else enjoy the board game "Battleship?" You played against one other person, you each had a dark blue plastic case that looked sort of Navy'ish and inside was this wonderfull sea green peg board grid with little grey ships.. destroyers, subs, escorts, and the prize, a battleship. Each person in turn would try to guess where the other persons ships were located, call out the coordinates and wait for a response from the opponent. We invented all sorts of verbal sound effects for this, when a shell missed or hit it's mark. Lots of fun. They later tried to upgrade it to an electronic version with lights and noise, but I still liked the old version where you created your own movie effects. It was actually first played as a paper and pencil game back in the 1940s during WWII

Jrich: That is a beauty, really nicely restored! I had a little '68 MG midget many years ago and loved driving it, but I had constant electrical problems with it and had to keep tuneing it up all the time.. lots of fun though and worth it.

I've seen old Volvos around here from the 70's and they are running fine, they were one of the best European cars made. They were sold to Ford several years ago and it was all down hill, and Ford just sold Volvo to a Chinese company.. Gads, a Chinese Sweedish car, that should be interesting!

It all revolves around the stock market, the worst thing that has happened to every country that got caught up in it.. Artificial production based on speculation. And when the specualtion doesn't seem to be making enough for the stock holders, who don't do a lick of work, they start finding ways to cut costs.. labor, quality of materials, etc. They lobby goverments for trade and tax benefits, that all the rest of us working stiffs end up paying for as well. It just goes on and on till the bubble bursts, then they take advantage of that and make even more money.

Hehe.. ya, a lot of the love affair with the car is gone. When I was younger I loved to go out and over haul an engine myself, or customize a car. Now they are so complicated they are just transportation.. I own a very practical 2002 Toyota RAVE 4 wheel drive which hauls stuff when we need to, has room for friends, handles relatively well, and gets good gas mileage, and is almost bullet proof mechanically and cheap to repair when something does go bad (rarely). I would like to own a sports car again, but there is almost no where to drive one fast that you don't run into traffic any more.. at least, where I live, in crowded California. Volvo's.. excellent cars, especially the older ones, but I've been disappointed in the quality of the newer ones, same with BMW and Mercedes, and the cost to own them and maintain them has also gotten absurd. I've been impressed with the quality and finish of Ford cars over the last couple of years.. may even buy a slightly used one down the line, but looks like this Toy is going be be around for a long time.

True, but now you're looking at non relative comparisons.. Yes, you can look at a country that is rich like the US, UK, etc. and when you compare them to poor countries it looks like true greed and is in many ways, but on what level? There is no excuse for having the same poor conditions in a country that is rich, like the USA where there are areas of almost every state with similar poor conditions with hungry kids and adults who can't afford anything or can't get jobs and the social programs have been cut back more and more. And it's interesting that percentage wise, the middle class (what's left of it) and lower middle class are more generous in trying to help others then those with the most money, when you look at the relative amounts of their charitable contributions compared to their earnings.. they've done studies on it. The growing number of families in the USA are having a hard time making it, I'm sure it's the same in the UK. They may have a car or two, but usually both parents are forced to work, they are loosing their houses because of being laid off or because of health issues and they can't afford to send their kids to college, not to mention all the other problems going on. Play things, cars, TV's, etc., have gotten cheaper over the years while necessities like food and shelter health and education have sky rocketed. Meanwhile, those at the top just get richer, at the expense of the rest of the population and those in the other poor countries that they have exploited for their own greed. So, yea, even poor families in the UK may be the envy of someone living in a poor country, but that doesn't mean they are greedy, IMHO. I also hope that though education we can make changes though, cut out a lot of the waste you mention, and help other countries develop and improve their conditions. I'm feeling pretty pessimistic about it though, I think those with power have too much to do much about them.. hope I'm wrong.

Speak for your self? Greed.. First you have to have more then you need, and that exists for only about 10% of this country. Wanting more in order to have the basic comforts of living in a country this wealthy.. a home, good food, comfort, the ability to send ones kids to college.. the ability to even be able to afford to pay to have kids and raise them. The ability to have time for recreation and enjoyment.. most people in this country want these things and DON'T have them.. that isn't greed. "THAT man" would have also said, thow the money lenders out, etc. Greed and corruption have taken over a lot of our government and the only blame I see is that most of us have let that happen by not getting involved and informed about how this country is run and what is really happening. A lot of our population has been dupped into accepting policies that only benefit the very rich, accepting token benefits, going along with fear politics, and not realizing how much the changes will eventually come back to haunt them.. and we are now seeing this, BIG TIME. And these policies of greed and exploitation are also being spred to take advantage of other countries, and are also now back fireing on us and the rest of the world. I wouldn't want to be a young person growing up in this counry today, it's bad enough at my age, I feel very fortunate to have the little bit that I still do have, on the positive side, I have no guilt about being greedy.

Wow.. sounds worse then I thought, but I still want to see it, if only for the flight scenes; they looked pretty good in the previews.

Fun question.. After I got out of the service in '69 I briefly worked for "Lee's Auto Parts" a store in Santa Monica, California that was also one of the early dune buggy and dune buggy parts sellers. I built this one myself and it was a lot of fun to drive on the streets or on actual sand dunes up in Oregon. Basically a shortned VW bug frame with a bolted on fiberglass body, convertable top, sooped up engine, etc. Really fun to drive/slide around recklessely in.

Are you talking about this one? The Red Baron (click) I've been waiting for it to arrive at Netflix.

Knowing what we know now, no one in thier right mind would want to fly either!

Sure, If I were rich.. living back then as a worker or laborer would have been hell.