Dan

Dude's hilarious.

As near as I can tell, they're not on sale yet. But, I'm waiting....

Much agreed. I think this is someone that's completely misquoting or misunderstanding what they're reading: PURPOSE.—The National Coordinator shall per4 form the duties under subsection © in a manner con5 sistent with the development of a nationwide health infor6 mation technology infrastructure that allows for the elec7 tronic use and exchange of information and that— ‘‘(4) provides appropriate information to help 18 guide medical decisions at the time and place of 19 care; As I read that, I interpret it to mean the National Coodinator [for Health Information Technology] shall help develop the technology infrastructure that allows for appropriate information to help guide medical decisions. Now, I suppose you could say that's bad because this National Coordinator will be guiding decisions, but I think that's reading too much into it. I'd suggest they're talking about creating the digital records that doctors can access to help them guide their medical decisions. I guess the devil will be in the implementation. I didn't completely read the sections referring to "Meaningful Users" because I assumed there are similar differences in interpretation. However, the little I did read said that the HHS Sec. would have a grant program as an incentive for doctors to use the national database and that meaningful EHR users would get the grant funds, non users wouldn't. Again though, that was just a very cursory reading of a few pages related to meaningful EHR users. Certainly, the government getting involved with telling doctors what type of care to provide is a bug issue. But, I just don't see that here. All the language in this bill seems to be referring to the development and implementation of a national database. Now, maybe the next step will be to misuse that information to dictate care, but that fight will have to come at the time that bill is proposed.

Just curious... does anyone here know anyone from Pakistan? The few that I know pronounced is POKystahn, not PACKeestan. So, maybe he's not mispronouncing it as much as we all think?

I think we need a pic to answer that question.

Sorry. Didn't mean to insinuate that you had no skills. Just not mad skills.

Move the Bills to Toronto and I bet Buffalo gets off the list entirely.

So anything not tied down on my front porch is fair game? I'd say bad analogy. Provided someone has unlimited broadband, Id say stealing internet is about as minor of a theft as you could have. Because you're not really depriving someone of their internet, you're more accurately just sharing it without permission. And in the vast majority of instances, I'd wager this sharing only minimally degrades the payers experience if at all. So I'd say what's the big deal. Of course, if you're abusing the connection with nefarious activities and such then its a different story.

For any one interested, you can donate to the Australian Red Cross online.

Unbelievable news. My prayers are with you and all Aussies. Stay safe. To make it worse, I was just reading a news clipping that said they suspected arsonists were starting/aiding the fires. Just unbelievable.

No doubt. It's obvious this guy is on par or better then the best backs in the league. Another nice run, pushing the entire team 5 yards ahead. Also, is it me or does Cutler look horrid in comparison to Peyton?

For all those that complained about the Boss' halftime show at the Super Bowl.... I give the ProBowl halftime. Enjoy.

Not a doubt in my mind that if he'd have gotten one of those runs, he would have scored.

4th and 1. Cameron calls in... tell Marshawn he better get this. Beast gets hit well behind the LOS and fights enough to get the first down. Love that guy!

There can be no other! Hamdan Rocks!!

Lynch gets a good run. My day is complete.

I'm watching.

The league has achieved exactly what they wanted and it's great for the game (IMO). Because of this parity, each year most all teams are still alive for the playoffs in December, each year new teams make the playoffs that were not there the year prior, each year the playoff games are highly competitive, and each year the Super Bowl is a good game between 2 evenly matched teams. Hence, more people watch for longer. I still don't get why it's such a bad thing for an 11-5 team that can't win it's division is not in the playoffs, while a 9-7 team that can is in. As to the original posters thoughts... the amount of money spent on FAs this year is irrelevant. Ralph could pay for every top dollar FA on the market and we'll still be an average team next season. There's one area he needs to spend money on and he's already made that decision - he's standing pat on the coaching staff. Does anyone really think a great, veteran backup QB is going to help this team win? Or lets pay big bucks and get the best WR in the league - just so he can run around while we dump off to the RBs. And just how good would Haynesworth look dropping back every other down in pass coverage?

I suppose that whole TARP $350billion thing was just in my head. I apologize.

I would suggest that the biggest difference between Democrats and Republicans is who they're giving money to. The Democrats seem to prefer giving money to poor/low income people, primarily. While the Republicans seem to prefer giving money to to the wealthy/high income people, primarily. But, both seem to be redistributing wealth. Either way, thanks to lobbyists and life long congressmen/women, the federal government has become pretty much nothing but money machine. It's just that every know and again the people getting their hands on the money change. I find it interesting that we rushed the TARP legislation through because we had to help the banks and what not. They got several hundred billion dollars with little accountability - AIG was paid 2.7 times their stocks value. And the Republicans have said little about that. Now, the Dems want to give several hundred billion to everyone else, and we have to slow down and think about it. (note: I'm not taking one side or the other here and saying one's right or wrong, I'm just making an observation.)

According to the CBO, we actually had surpluses in the late 90's, which effectively halted the growth of the national debt; hence, the the term net. But apparently, that's not good enough because we don't like the way we got the surplus and stopped adding to our debt. OK. Actually, I ascertained exactly what you were trying to say. I simply used a little hyperbole in a failed attempt to make a point. You're point seems to be that governmental policies have little effect on benefiting the economy but often hurt it. So, can I assume you'd just prefer the government to do nothing? At least that way they're not hurting anything? Interesting though that through the debate, I don't recall seeing your detailed fix for the mess we're currently in. My original point of this thread was to ask about tax cuts, because I wanted additional insight from individuals that favor tax cuts. See, in my world, I don't have the answers, I don't even always understand all the questions, but I do try to gain perspective and insight. We currently have 2 primary theories as to how to get the economy going - tax cuts or federal spending. Maybe neither of those will work, but the reality is we're going to do primarily one or the other because those are the only 2 ideas on the table. Therefore, it seems relevant to discuss those two ideas. On the other hand, I suppose we could just sit here and say I don't like any of it, government is bad, everyone is stupid, I'm right - despite the fact that I don't know what I'm right about because I've never articulated constructive alternatives. I think we can all agree that the government spending more than it has is a bad idea. However, we've done that for decades and, yes, it's one of the facets to this problem. So what do we do now? Cut all spending, raise taxes, get out of debt? Or just do nothing at all? Perhaps we should introduce the bird flu, kill the 1.6 million that just lost their jobs and let the rest sort itself out?

I would expect so. Just as I would expect the Republicans asked for cuts that they knew they could concede on in order to compromise, as well. Similar to any negotiation, you always go in lower or higher (depending on if you're buying or selling) than what you're really prepared to pay/sell for.

As I stated previously, I'm certain I'm not the only one here that has no clue what they're talking about. Except that during the Clinton administration the net number of government employees and spending did not increase. In reality, I drink ice tea with a greater degree of regularity. Although I did drink Kool-aid at my sister's house a few weeks ago. Not sure what that has to do with anything though. It's fairly universal in business, government, anything that the useless administrative bureaucrats are fired last. Not sure how we can single out any one Administration because of that. I have no problem at all pointing out that I know very little about economics. Nor am I pretending to. I'm merely pointing out that there seems to be a moving scale as to what effects the economy and what doesn't. Excellent. So if nothing any politician ever does has any effect on the economy why are we all so worried about the current "stimulus" bill? Well looks like it's time to move to Canada, because they're saying now this "stimulus" bill will pass in some form. It's always nice to make someone smile.

So now we're quibbling over which parts of the government are more important. Cut one, grow the other, back and forth. What's more important is did the overall size of the government and did the government's spending increase or decrease? At least that's how I see it. Why should we have continued to grow our military under Clinton? We weren't in any major wars and Russia had pretty well collapsed. I've always kinda laughed at this notion that today's problems are due to some guy 10 years ago. Just how long does it take for an Administration's economic policies to come to fruition? Lord knows the stock market goes up or down every time some one sneezes. Yet, it takes 8+ years for Clinton's policies to take effect? Does that also mean that the economic growth of the 80's was due to the policies of Carter and Ford in the 70's? I'm not saying that all policy effects are seen immediately and that no latent effects are realized. I just don't understand why our current bad economy is because of Clinton. And that our economic growth in the 90's was because of Bush/Reagan. But our economy in the 80's was also Reagan. See how it all gets backed up kinda (because we all know Carter sucked balls)? Does that also mean that we don't have to do anything now, because Bush's last 8 years will begin to pay off in a year or 2? I'd agree entirely with your final statement.

But of course. I'd dare to say, the vast majority of people here have no idea what they're talking about.