caeron

I take some comfort in the fact that the vote was close, and on an issue like this, the right is going to get better turn out than we do. Still, it is a disappointment. So close to getting voter support.

And I think you're arguing for prohibition. People are still using. Nothing has changed in 40 years except that we're paying a metric shitload to pay to have various drug users and dealers locked up. We're living with the criminal consequences of creating murderous gangs that are killing lots of innocents in mexico. Frankly, I'd rather those who wish to use drugs die, than innocents. Prohibition didn't work then, and it isn't working now. Staring at the reality of the evils of drink and drug addiction doesn't mean that society has the power to make that go away. You may _want_ prohibition to work very badly, but it doesn't. Short of totalitarianism, I don't think it can ever work, and I don't want to live in that society. By process of elimination, that leads to some form of legalization. I think many labor under the belief that the problem is fixable by society somehow. I don't think it is. Society used to think homosexuality was fixable. It wasn't. People will drink and do drugs as they have since we came down out of trees. Head in the sand doesn't change our fundamental impulses. Science may find a way to rewire our impulses some day, but threat of jail clearly doesn't work.

Emotion makes good rhetoric, but poor policy, I think. Alchohol and drugs have been with us since near the dawn of man and telling people they can't by force of law might only work if you are willing to execute everyone caught with drugs within 48 hours without appeal. I think we don't need to explore whether that cure is worse than the drugs. All these horrors you talk about happen even though they're illegal, so how then is making them illegal having any apparent effect? Anybody here who hasn't tried drugs because they were illegal? I didn't think so. Legalizing might well cause more people to use. But it would allow honest, open, true communications about the drugs. Taxation, treatment, quality control. Outlawing liquor didn't cure our human need for booze. Talking about alchoholism and treatment openly did. A lot of things about booze have changed in the last 40 years. Making all these drugs illegal criminalizes the sickness of drug addiction and vastly complicates the the treatment and public discussion of addiction. It feeds a vast criminal network that is murderous. What we are doing is failing, and has created a new mafia. It has been failing for 40 years since Nixon first talked about the war on drugs in 1969. We need a new approach.

I gave generously to the No on 1 campaign, I hope others have as well.

It might inspire me to get off my ass and write the couple of review I should have written last month

I liked Thomas Friedman of the NY Times' take on it. I think it is worth a look.

He's apparently spending a month+ getting ripped. I won't pay for it, but I will check it out.

My guess is given the street crime in Rio, that this won't even hit their radar. They'll be focused on making the city safe for all the dumb tourists who will come :-)

I always come in from the home page to see what new reviews are up, and who the boys of the day are before heading to the forums. Now, I keep having to click the "yes, I know this is a dirty website" screen. It doesn't remember that I've clicked it, and the homepage URL isn't different so I can't bookmark my way past that.

No, I don't. France won't stop cooperating with us on Iran over this incident. I don't care how old he is. He doesn't become innocent because time has passed. If this was a 30 year old murder, would you say the same? He did the crime. The victim said it was not consensual. Are you really suggesting he not be punished because he's successfully evaded the law for 30 years? Or that because he's famous and popular that he be let off?

I read the WSJ daily. It's opinion section for at least the last ~10 years or so has been pretty traditional social conservative. Which is too bad, because I think they'd have a much more useful perspective if their perspective was business fiscal conservative. I think everyone should be required to have coverage which addresses the point they raise.

I don't really care if the EU is upset that a guy who drugged and fucked a 13 year old is finally going to face justice.

I think for profiles this is great, and agree that a email last verified time would be useful for reviews.

The big benefit of the trust in my parents' case was that if one pre-deceases the other, that would normally consume their exemption amount for estate purposes. The trust effectively ensured that when the second parent dies, we kids get the benefit of both parents exemptions, not just one. Not sure how it would apply in your case, but I think it bears a second look.

I'm not a lawyer, but like conway said, my own parents estate planning involved a trust to ensure that the government didn't take what my folks worked for. I don't see why a similar approach wouldn't work for your family.

I think you need a second opinion.

As others have said, estate planning is your friend. Ask the questions now. There are ways to manage it if you do it before your parents die. After they die, not so much.

That there are two sides to this and that the truth lies between them is a bit of a tautology. The implication is that the truth is halfway between these points, which I have seen no evidence to support. There are plenty of horror stories about American healthcare. There are plenty of horror stories about health period. That these stories about socialized medicine are used as 'proof' that this form of healthcare kills people is asinine. US infant mortality, as I think I mentioned on another thread, is currently the equivalent of poland and slovakia. We aren't near to having the best health care in the world, just the most expensive. Quality, as any business person knows, is driven by standards that are rigorously adhered to and rigorously reviewed. Our free market health care isn't capable of acting in this fashion and the quality of health care delivered in this country suffers as a result. When we treat health care as a business, it will operate as a business. A business' objective is to extract the maximum possible money from its customers. It will upsell them things they don't need. It will imply that the base product is inferior. Does any of this sound familiar? How many people today buy premium vodka because some advertising has persuaded them that it is better? Now make it about your own health, and see how much health care businesses can extract from people. It is a pity that the debate at a national level isn't fact based and honest. The democrats are lying about the cost. The republicans are hewing to an ideological line ignoring the facts.

As long as we treat groups and corporations as people, we're going to have this problem. There is nothing in the constitution that suggests that the free speech rights that individuals have need to apply to corporations or groups. It is now the law of the land, but I think it has resulted in the confused issues of acceptable campaign speech that we now have.

Somehow I don't think these boards are going to be a place for deep insight into health care reform. Once the debate turned into death panels what very little hope I had about rational discourse died. The NPR poll was about a public option. It isn't necessarily in conflict with the one you cite. I believe based upon the expert I know that a single payer system with add-ons would be the best choice. That isn't going to happen, because for whatever reason socialized medicine = death here in the US, despite the fact that it delivers better quality of care. (infant mortality for instance in the US blows) People seem to be of the impression that letting every doctor do whatever leads to better care. I think the evidence suggests that centralized treatment policy gives better results. True experts can lay out guidance for less experienced doctors to implement. Horrors.

US doctors disagree with you 3-1.

Look at the number of birthers. I think there is a large pool of folks who do object to a black president. I think many republicans are happy to draw on that poisonous attitudes whether they believe it or not. They may not be racist, but they're happy to enjoy the fruits of racism.

This is on my cable modem. I would expect that most hotels have some limited bandwidth coming in that all users share. If the hotel is busy, or that line isn't very big, then you're going to get crappy throughput.

Apparently doctors think it's a good idea. NPR had a story on some folks who surveyed doctors and found that by about a 3-1 margin they wanted a public options, and 10% wanted just a public option. My father consults on health care quality controls world wide. He is in that 10%.

No, but saying that 16 year olds around the country are going to slit their wrists if somebody outs the lt. governor of south carolina isn't helping either. There are a lot of gay presences in the world today. Outing one closeted politician isn't going to change their world. The debate has been about the effect of the outing. If you want to change into gay bashing in high schools, we can. But it isn't on point.