John Adams

We can't afford to spend 25% of medicare dollars on the last year of people's lives. That's insane and is the result of our inability to help people die with dignity. Instead we fight it tooth and nail. That's not a sustainable model. We need to cut back medicare benefits on other things too--but when we spend 1 in 4 dollars on end of life care, would you agree that's something that we should look at? Do you think we spend too much money on end of life care? Do you see that as part of the problem with how we spend public funds on healthcare? By the way, the fact that you're advocating paying for all the healthcare bills of the elderly is wonderful. PastaJoe welcomes you to his club.

No I won't. Happy for your parents--I am glad that they are living an active and independent life. Even if they were not, I'd be happy for them. But if you think we should continue to pay for every last medical procedure for everyone who wants it until they die, then don't B word about the medical costs of socialized medicine Comrade. Who do you think pays for all this medical coverage? Vive le Parti Socialiste. Even so-called Conservatives on this board don't get it.

Thank you. To the "Get back to me on my death bed?" crowd, your attitude is the exact problem we are facing. You are going to die. Soon. When I'm 84 and need heart surgery to replace a valve, what I won't do is ask you to pay for it, OK? And frankly, I won't probably pay for it myself. I'm not going to fight for every last breath so I can lie in a hospital for the last 2 years of my life. I prefer a quality of life to a quantity of life. Americans and American doctors are so afraid of death it's pathetic. Our end-of-life care in this country is ignorant and atrocious. We see everything as a medical problem to be solved instead of looking for ways to have a slightly prolonged quality of life. Most people would rather have 18 months of sick-wasting away chemo than 2 months at home and getting about until they die.

NPR is a 179 million dollar a year business with a 200 million dollar building. Not sure that's too far out of line given their technology needs. For a 1000 person office, a cafeteria and gym are normal these days. Keeps employees more productive and at work longer. Pharma and tech companies learned this long ago. I wonder if they have on-site day care. PR-wise, it's a black eye but I have no idea if 200M is excessive or not for a huge media company. I don't listen to NPR a lot but sometimes do. My wife loves it. You can have an argument with yourself, or with me. If you choose the later, you will need to listen. Healthcare costs are unsustainably growing. Mostly that's because we are a bunch of fatasses. But it's also because we are so crappy at end of life care, where we, as a country, don't have the psychological bravery to decide when enough medical care is enough. Death is a part of living--spending countless tax dollars on painful and undignified end of life medical procedures is awful and disrespectful. If you want to spend your money--or theirs--on your parents, that's awesome. But we spend way too much money and effort stripping elderly people of their dignity in an effort to prolong their last 6 months of life in a hospital bed. That's no way to live. Don't start shouting "death panels." I don't have the solution. Just pointing out the problem. Medicare already denies healthcare and meds for a variety of things. Pointing out that we need to cut end of life care expenditures more aggressively as well.

Basically it means that if Americans got off their asses and stopped eating the foods in the center aisles of their grocery stores, we'd be healthier and have less of a healthcare problem. So it's anything that helps contribute to healthy life. And it's the only way to make us healthier. Gastric bypass is not healthcare. Hopefully at some point, we let old people and fatasses die without spending bazillions of dollars on them.

This is a spoof? A comedy? It looks awful if it's trying to be a drama.

Disagree. The working poor have a lot to gain from appreciating a party of lower taxes and less government. Lumping all immigrants in as "people who want benefits" is too broad of a brush.

House: 90% reelection rate in 2012 Senate: 91% reelection rate in 2012 Executive: 100% reelection rate. We get what we vote for.

Not much. Don't be too jealous. Every age had had their court trollop.

So they said 200 years ago. Every age is egocentric enough to believe theirs is the end of times.

We still have never achieved my goal of getting a thread moved from PPP to TSW.

Deadwood's creator David Milch quit the show--HBO didn't want to cancel it. Milch wanted to focus on John from Cincinnati ..remember that show...with the guy who was maybe an angel/surfer. Come on, you remember right? The show about the guy? The angel guy? No way is Sopranos Number 1. You can't put out 4 season of complete dreck and expect to be Number 1. I always imagined those later season writer's meetings going like this: "Get out the list of people we haven't done some episodes about and let's create a character arc. Oh good, JAnice Soprano...and Bobby Bacalla and his kids. Let's make them center stage because god knows we don't want more Tony, Paulie, Christopher etc."

Most posters here are men. Go to pinterest to see the other side.

It's an aggressive form of cancer and if it's in the bone, they usually have to remove the affected bone. Best wishes Jim.

And if we are going by anecdote, men eff about a lot more than women. In my office, the women are mostly busting their butt all day and the men are goofing around more. Women in my office tend to be way more diligent than their male counterparts.

You don't think 12 is an appropriate age to have that conversation? He already has seen how it all works. Yay Internet for taking away any mystery. Why not the vaccine?

Like I said, there are always ways around it. Most wouldn't bother. When crayonz/performer comes around with a fake ID, you block him. Not that hard. Instead of policing behavior, you police posters. Seems a much easier solution to raise the humanity. Keep Jim in Anchorage from calling people faggots (maybe). Keep posters in this thread from saying defamatory things.

I acknowledged that in my post, and most people would not want to constantly login and out of their fake and real accounts. It would raise the dialog level.

I often wonder if posters realize the people talked about read the threads. We all have the luxury of posting anonymously these hurtful things in a thread about his health. I'm sure SDS has considered it, but I'd be all for the Facebook account posting here, meaning all posts go up with your name (as set in your Facebook account...no Facebook, no posting) attached. Could you still be an anonymous douche? I suppose. But maybe it would make people more human. Probably stop the "hey Jim Kelly might have a health problem isn't that awful?" "Oh really, he's a drunk woman beating turd eating double murdering leech thief philanderer etc,"

The problem with the Tea Party is that it never really formed as a true political party with endorsed leaders, platforms, and all that jazz. It was the conservative version of a commune. People came together with some common ideals but it lacked a practical edge that winning candidates need. So "Tea Party candidates" became anyone who endorsed their economic pledge. Those candidate's other crazy views could be anything. I might be a Tea Party candidate with quiet uncontroversial social views...suddenly Bachman swoops in as the big Tea PArty candidate and everyone looks at me like we share the same crazy views, because we are from the same party. That's not good message control and it doesn't produce viable candidates. The TP party put out an economic hook that could conceivably catch both Libertarians who are pretty much hands-off government in social issues and the right wing social engineers as well. That doesn't make for a cohesive message in your candidate list so the Libertarians decided to stay away because Bachman/Palin were not people they wanted to associate with. Not to mention and maybe Magox alluded to this above or maybe he's talked about it elsewhere, the Tea Party's failure so far is ignoring all issues non-social. Politicians need to be practical. You will not get the Latino vote (one the Repubs still have a chance of landing) by having harsh rhetoric on immigration and illegal immigrants. You can't court young voters and support Constitutional bans on gay marriage (Romney). The former issue is important. The later is not. But both alienate big swaths of voters. When you say the path to citizenship for illegal immigrants is 15 years away and virtually impossible, you turn off Latinos.The second someone says they support a Constitutional ban on gay marriage, the under 30 (probably now under 40 even) crowd mocks their idiocy. If the Tea Party isn't controlling that message, they alienate those massive voter groups right away. The Tea Party can become a party I guess and try to take on a full platform. But the damage to its image is irreparable. Probably better to reboot, copy some of the econ language, get some legit candidates and a real party leadership, and try again. The Libertarians have their own branding issue. Being the party of potheads is not the picture you want for yourself. That image may not be as prevalent today but it's still a problem.

Home run post. Reagan's big tent is a failure in 2013. The Tea Party's image is a mess--it has no appeal to minorities, little to women, and minimal appeal to the young. When Palin and Bachman (and others) became self-proclaimed Tea Party leaders, the party's message started to blur.What started as a focused movement got tied to Bachman and her ilk--who were pushing a broader agenda that included social crap--and that social crap alienates a lot of non white and younger voters. It also is raw meat to the media lion. The TP's whole leaderless party idea was interesting but not a long term strategy for success. Parties need cohesion and leaders, not marchers who leave behind clean parks. The TP also needed leaders to say, "Thanks Michelle Bachman, we appreciate your support, but we don't give a rat's ass about your social stuff." Instead she was perceived as a TP leader and the TP became synonymous (wrongfully) with her and some of her crazier views. Trying revive the Tea Party image is a waste of time. The support "bump" isn't going to make inroads along any of the demographics needed.

Not much of a photo of the women, but check out the boss in the car. Holy ****. A he's just creepy. B that car is an epic mess. Not sure I've seen it's equal.

I wonder why so much is being made of the DoS security pass log. I mean--outside the need to throw raw meat to the salivating masses. The gmail intrusion seems to be the real issue. There's a NYT editorial today justifying the AP wiretaps--good timing!

But his gmail account? The accusation is that Rosen was soliciting classified info. "From the beginning of their relationship, the reporter asked, solicited and encouraged Mr. Kim to disclose sensitive United States internal documents and intelligence information … by employing flattery and playing to Mr. Kim's vanity and ego," Reyes wrote in his affidavit. "He said the reporter "instructed Mr. Kim on a covert communications plan ... to facilitate communication." The affidavit said they used nicknames in subsequent emails and asterisks as signals if Kim wanted to talk by phone." The monitoring lasted for 2 days at least according to the LA Times article. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-fbi-reporter-20130521,0,661230.story More to come on this story.

No. Buying 2000 tickets with a 1 in half a million chance that I win 50M is the barrier. Who would do that? Not to mention Jim's point. And taxes. And the whole issue of other winners.