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Last November, while the health care reform package was being debated, my insurance company decided to raise my Medicare Advantage plan cost from $0 to $1000 a year. They didn't know what any possible reforms were going to cost them, but they were pissed, and decided to reach into my pocket for an extra thousand bucks, just in case. I sent the info off to the state insurance commissioner's office as an example of abusive practices, and let them deal with it. Of course, the insurance companies couldn't justify their rate increases, and were forced to back off. I'm sure the banks are pissed off too at the very idea of someone telling them how much they can charge, and they're making some preemptive strikes of their own. I haven't heard from my large bank yet, but I'm sure I will. So I'm in the process of finding a smaller regional bank I can move to, just in case. It wasn't easy changing insurers at the last minute, and it won't be easy changing banks after twenty-five years. But I will. I agree with you that there will be a bunch of less informed, less flexible, customers who will just have to sit still and take whatever these large companies try to shove up their ass, just as they have been bending over for the last decade or so. Sadly, I don't think the average consumer is a match for some of these large financial institutions. So who will be their advocate if they can't advocate for themselves? I'd like to think that the insurance companies and the banks will have a change of heart and balance their need for profits and bonuses against their customer's need for a fair shake. I'd also like to think that the Republicans, including the Tea Party, will include consumer protection as part of their economic platform. But I'm having trouble finding evidence of that right at the moment. Any encouragement you or anyone else can provide will be most welcome.

Well said, MsGuy, and I'll add my own latest blooper to the list. Last night, I was struggling with a post, trying to get the formatting right, and I went back in to make one tiny little adjustment - no more than erasing an extra space as I recall. When I hit "Preview", phoot!, the entire post became festooned with formatting characters, ampersands, quote marks, and more brackets than the shelving section at Ikea. Worse, there was nothing I could do to to get rid of them. I tried backspacing over everything so I could try again and, while my gibberish was gone, the machine gibberish remained. I even tried typing "Sorry, need to start over.", but it was unreadable with all the formatting characters hanging off my every word. I finally tripped over some kind of a 'clear all' button that seemed to get rid of the chazerai, and I was able to start all over. All this to say that, much as I love this new software, it is not as forgiving of minor user errors as one might hope. I have a hunch we're going to be seeing lots more double posts, and probably much worse, until we can eventually wrassle it to the ground. Of course, now that I realize that letting my errant post stand and enduring the inevitable teasing would have provided me an opportunity to top the initiator, I would have held down the 'Reply' and 'Post Again' buttons all night long. Such welcome topping opportunities do not present themselves every day. Not to me anyway. Matrix, I hope you will complete your off-site considerations successfully, and return in record time. I'm glad to see the Politics Forum getting more active, and your posts are an important reason why. Plus, I'd never have found Randy Rainbow without you. Still very much obliged!

Larry Summers was one of the gang, along with Alan Greenspan, Robert Rubin (Geithner's mentor), and Arthur Levitt, who put the kibosh on Brooksley Born's 1998 plan to regulate the $25 trillion derivatives market. They won that time, and the ensuing financial excesses nearly cratered the economy ten years later. These guys do not like regulation. Good. If they don't know what a safe speed limit looks like, they shouldn't be driving anyway. Again, these are the same hand wringers that said regulating credit default swaps and all those other cockamamie derivatives would bring the financial market to its knees. If you ask me, better it stay on its knees for a while instead of hurtling us all into another ditch. I'm with you, TampaYankee. Obama deserves a thumbs up for trying to rein these guys in. Given what we've learned during the past two years, I think he'd be irresponsible to let them get behind the wheel again before he puts some guardrails up.

You rang?? But seriously . . . The guy is very funny. Seems like a pretty simple concept, but I don't recall seeing anyone else doing this kind of stuff, and he delivers seamlessly. Wonder how long it takes him to put one of these together? I could easily see him doing a daily or weekly bit on TV. Thanks for your patient persistence.

Many thanks, guys! Excellent advice, as usual. My thoughts may have been colored by an experience a few years ago in Budapest, where a friend and I spent our first night in a very nice hotel, and then another week in an apartment we found in a local guide. It was a spacious two bedroom apartment, with a helpful manager and his cute 'assistant' who showed us where to find everything we were looking for and how to get around. The apartment was quite a bit cheaper than the hotel, much more spacious, and was in a neighborhood that put us among the locals. We felt free to have guests, and we could roll out of bed in the morning for cereal and coffee while still in our jammies. I guess that's the experience I was hoping to capture in Rio. I'd certainly spend the first night or two in a hotel, but also leave open the option of relocating to a nice weekly apartment if there was one to be found. If nothing good turned up, it sure sounds like the Atlantico is the place to be. (When I'm not otherwise occupied, that is. ) You folks are incredibly knowledgeable and very gracious in sharing your experiences. And the pictures in the other threads are definitely stoking my desire to put it to good use. Thanks again for all the tips!

And I love your avatar. Friend of yours?

So sad, but so true. I once toyed with the idea that a good campaign finance reform package would prohibit all 30-second TV and radio ads in favor of print media. Not only would sound bites be a thing of the past, but we'd get back to digging deeper into the issues. Not to mention that campaign expenditures would be a fraction of current levels, and somebody besides millionaires could afford to run. Very thoughtful post, by the way. Thanks.

Reminds me of a joke that's too good not to share. We all wept together . . . As a bagpiper, I play many gigs. Recently I was asked by a funeral director to play at a graveside service for a homeless man. He had no family or friends, so the service was to be at a pauper's cemetery in the Kentucky back country. As I was not familiar with the backwoods, I got lost and, being a typical man, I didn't stop for directions. I finally arrived an hour late and saw the funeral guy had evidently gone and the hearse was nowhere in sight. There were only the diggers and crew left and they were eating lunch. I felt badly and apologized to the men for being late. I went to the side of the grave and looked down and the vault lid was already in place. I didn't know what else to do, so I started to play. The workers put down their lunches and began to gather around. I played out my heart and soul for this man with no family and friends. I played like I've never played before for this homeless man. And as I played 'Amazing Grace,' the workers began to weep. They wept, I wept, we all wept together. When I finished I packed up my bagpipes and started for my car. Though my head hung low, my heart was full. As I opened the door to my car, I heard one of the workers say, "I never seen nothin' like that before and I've been putting in septic tanks for twenty years." Apparently I'm still lost . . .

Don't mind if I do! The most users ever at Daddy's was 243, in June. After the July 'vacation', the number of simultaneous users dropped significantly. It seems to be running about 50 now. Assuming the way the two sites measure numbers are similar, the most users ever on this site was 38 yesterday. And it's at 23 now. So I think you can conclude that the past month or so has been good to MER. Before Daddy's vacation and Lucky's challenge, MER's active user base was probably running about 10% - 15% of Daddy's. And now it's closer to half. Plus MER's trends are up, while Daddy's are down. Don't know what all that means in the grand scheme of things but, if Daddy considers his message center to be a nuisance, and MER wants a bigger presence, it seems you are both realizing your dreams.

I wondered where everybody was.

Relax, guys! I said I'm here to trim the grass .

Woof ! !

It took me a l-o-o-o-n-g time to discover they were clickable. I'd be embarrassed to tell you how I was getting around before finding that little trick.

Well that was worth the wait!! Congratulations you two!

After I hit "Add Reply", I usually scroll to the top of the screen and click one of the three tabs about halfway down: MaleEscortReview . . Main Category . . Lucky's Place 'Lucky's Place' to get back to the other threads in the forum 'Main Category' to see what's in the other forums 'MaleEscortReview' to get back to the site's main page Occasionally, I look outside to see the moon rising high above and figure I've posted enough for one day. But that's rare.

I think it may be laying eggs.

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I don't use RSS feeds myself, but I notice the Safari browser bar gives me the option to click on 'RSS' for many of the sites I visit, including this one. Here's an article that describes how they work. It mentions folders, so it looks like it should be pretty straightforward to organize them the way you wish. Hope it helps.

I needed to take care of a few things around the house.

Good idea! Where's the splash page?

Freely given, with knobs on. First to admit I'm a political naif, so I'm not aware just when we began the tradition of running our wackos for office. There's Tail-Gunner Joe McCarthy, of course, and probably a host of state and local officials, but when did the loonies first begin campaigning for national office? Perot was the first to get my attention, but it must have begun before that. Who started the custom?

You may well be right. I thought most of it was out there too, but VF did bring lots of it together in one place. Kind of like Popular Psychology running a feature on the Festrunk brothers. Wild and crazy? Or Political Timber? Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Bad as our homegrown prudes are, they're a pale imitation of the wackos in Iran, where a woman may be stoned to death this week for adultery. Lawyer says Iranian woman could be stoned soon It never ceases to amaze me what we are capable of in the name of 'religion'. I can't imagine a just God willing to be in the same room with these monsters.

I've learned the key is entering the water with grace and precision.