DrewEckhardt

One does get into the big issue about promises made on fidelity, versus that idea about "... but everyone's cheating". Or at least, how can you expect a rich, talented, and famous man to want to limit himself to one woman? Plenty of men have loved their wife and kids but still wanted something on the side, whether it is right or not. Decent people keep their promises (to be monogamous, only add other people with the spouse present, only add with the spouses consent, there are lots of possibilities in this modern world) and honest where biological imperatives make that impractical (discovering latent vegisexualism or whatever). Being poor, rich, or famous doesn't figure into anything but the likely size of the divorce settlement.

Only if you have a level 3 or 4 plan. I asked for a quote on my nine year old cat and got the following with the continuing care option checked. All options have a $100 deductible with 20% co-insurance. I had the "continuing care" option checked. The max per-incident benefit for Level 2 (accident and illness) was $1500, with a cost of $230/year. The max per-incident benefit for Level 3 is $3500, with a cost of $394/year. Level 4 is $5000 and $743. The last time I looked at pet insurance from VPI and another provider there were laundry lists of injuries/illnesses and what they'd pay for each one with the most expensive problems capped at $1500. I figured that with only one such problem every five years I'd be coming out ahead if I self-insured.

You want to check the repair cost before making any claim to the insurance company using small shops that are in the business of fixing things for people instead of trying to get the most business possible from an insurance company. When I used my insurance company's windshield replacement coverage which has a smaller deductible ($100 IIRC) they paid out for only $200 in damages but removed my "ultra preferred" discount which increased my premiums by over $100 a year. Unlikely. You'd have to be very creative explaining how over-spray caused the other problems.

Assuming it wouldn't mean my immediate family going hungry (some people come first) and willard wouldn't be suffering after (death would sometimes be more merciful), shop around for a good price and get the operation (there's latitude here). Willard is a member of the family.

No. I think the Obama administration sees the wisdom in decriminalization and has directed the DEA (which is part of the Executive Branch Justice Department) to leave California alone. It's unlikely to come from within the DEA because few bureaucrats with enough interest and aptitude to acquire a position of power would do anything to reduce their agency's scope, budget, and power. Things would probably be different under another administration. Decriminalization is more likely than legalization because it's less painful politically. My conservative position would be that it's a states' rights issue, although this is really about people's emotions and politicians staying in office. No. It means that classifying marijuana as a schedule 1 substance was politically useful and possible. The masses like it when politicians do things about problems, like keeping pot from turning people into draft-dodging pacifists or making niggers attack white women. The politicians prefer this sort of legislative activity to something which would be politically painful or hard to pull off (witness the health care debacle)

As a new skydiver you're likely to meet accepted criteria for downsizing in 70-100 jumps which is less than a full season. Provided that you don't buy a parachute smaller than is accepted and you're suffering average levels of testosterone poisoning you'll be wanting to downsize at that point. Getting a canopy you like well enough with a price tag that reflects its resale value in a container which will safely accommodate your next two down-sizes is more important than finding the perfect canopy. If you're looking at used gear in the Sabre2 price range, try a Spectre to see how you like 7-cell flight characteristics. Ideally you want to test jump whatever used gear you actually end up buying. If you're looking at used gear in the Monarch/Sabre price range, you might try one and see whether you've become spoiled enough by modern canopy's slower openings to sell your plasma so you can buy something newer.

This brings to mind the "Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention" first posited by Thomas Friedman in 1996, at which point none of the hundred countries with McDonald's had gone to war with each other (even Israel and Egypt). Once countries reach the level of prosperity and stability to support a McDonalds they've crossed the threshold where war is unattractive to their population.

What You LLC or You Inc provide its employee (you personally) so you get the same favorable tax treatment that Competing Big Company Inc does on essential things like health insurance (without health insurance you're one injury away from no longer being a business or home owner, and I'm aware that it's no longer the best example due to being included as a Schedule C expense)

Welcome to this century. It's less expensive to deliver information on-line. On-line sign-ups are both much less expensive and less error-prone. Be glad that your employer is cutting costs by reducing administrative overhead instead of cutting benefits or laying people off and increasing your work-load to compensate. It does suck that your employer wasn't more prepared and able to give you a reasonable time to sign up on-line for benefits.

Some of the Paragear measurements were done under PIA's Technical Standard 104, where the canopy is placed in a cylinder tail-first with the lines on top, compressed for 30 seconds with a 210 pound weight, and measured. Some are statements from the manufacturer which don't seem to correlate with reality.

How do they feel about cost of their health care? I pay just $103.20 a month in pre-tax dollars (which is like spending $64.70 of take-home pay) to cover both my wife and myself with no in-network deductible or co-insurance. Co-pays are up to $40 for specialists but that's usually pretty rare. I like that just fine. As a side effect of WWII wage controls, most private insurance takes the form of group plans where people don't directly bear the total cost or even become aware of it until changing jobs and getting a letter informing them of their rights under COBRA.

You can use all three depending on the situation http://www.gunbroker.com/Support/SupportFAQView.aspx?FAQID=1118&NoCount=1 Note that while completely legal to ship firearms to yourself (no transfer has occurred) as of 2006 FedEx would not do it. Their written tariff says there has to be an FFLs on one end. Federal law makes it a felony to not declare firearms to common shippers so lying would be a felony. OTOH, they do allow shipments to licensed collectors so you could theoretically use a C&R FFL to get around their silly rules. With US mail unlicensed individuals can only mail long guns.

No. Politicians want wield power through staying in office via re-election and trading favors. Keeping campaign donors happy helps. The appearance of doing things which can be described in sound bites helps, especially when those things are pain points getting media coverage. Actually fixing problems does not help unless it fits into one of the previous categories. Actually fixing problems would leave less to legislate over and make it harder to get re-elected.

While that's how it's done in practice it's a mis-quote. Mr. Bill is the one that says "Oh noooooo" not Mr. Hand so there is no "Oh no, Mr. Bill." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_misquotations

Gold does about as well as inflation except when speculators drive the price up. In inflation adjusted dollars, we're well below (less than $1000 vs $1417 in 2008 dollars) the 1981 peak and above where the price would be in constant dollars. I wouldn't bet on gold. You want diversity so you're less exposed to risks. Whatever you do you want to hold your assets in tax-advantaged accounts like a 529 plan for college savings which allows tax-free withdrawals for education (including any gains) and has contributions which are often deductible from your state income tax. For retirement a mix of traditional and Roth IRA (or 401K, or SIMPLE, etc.) plans would be ideal; where you're hedging on the risk of what happens with taxes (with unprecedented debt, they're going up) and the government's treatment of such accounts (for example, tax-deferred withdrawals mean that your social security becomes taxable therefore doubly your marginal tax rates). Such plans will also give you target-date plans which experts believe to offer an appropriate level of risk based on your children's time left before school and your time left to retire. The complication there is that things are pretty unprecedented and therefore unpredictable.

The "rich" would be stupid to pay American workers a minimum of $15,080 a year for full-time work when they can get semi-skilled Chinese or Indian laborers for $1800 a year.

My advice would be to just watch it all on CSPAN to the extent possible. Listen to the source directly when possible. In any case, it's going to be good. Edit: Oops! ... never mind CSPAN is the State run media and cannot be trusted! Like many Americans I work 10-12 hours a day and commute up to 2. Watching CSPAN wouldn't be that practical. Reading a two to ten page summary on the most relevant pieces would be easy.

In the months of debate over health care I've yet to read anything personally relevant from diverse media sources (New York Times, CNN, AP wire, the AARP news letter, The Economist, Libertarian Enterprise) and on-line forums. I doubt that's going to change. Interesting questions would be 1. What coverage is required? Coming up with even a few thousand dollars in co-payments or deductibles isn't going to bankrupt most financially responsible people who aren't among the 80M already covered by government insurance and doing so once a decade is a lot cheaper than paying for even a year of insurance with no co-insurance requirements especially when the out-of-pocket expenses can be paid with pre-tax dollars. OTOH selling super-premium packages to more of the American public would be great for the insurance company's bottom line. 2. What will the tax treatment be? In high tax states you can achieve marginal tax rates which would make individual insurance purchased with post tax money cost 100% more than employer provided (example: 28% federal, 9.3% CA state, 6.2% FICA, 6.2% employer's share of FICA, 1.45% medicare, 1.45% employer's share, 1.1% CA state disability, for a 53.6% total). Under current law only self-employed people with net profit and those who've spent 7.5% of their AGI on medical care can deduct insurance from their taxable income. Bringing insurance premium tax treatment in line with that provided to employer purchased plans or making those taxable would have a huge impact on affordability. 3. How much more will insurance companies covering pre-existing conditions be allowed to charge people with those conditions? While HIPAA requires group plans to cover hazardous recreational activities, the insurance companies got the law written to allow "source of injury" exclusions so although they need to cover employees who ride motorcycles they can exclude the most likely expensive injuries. A plan written for the insurance companies could require pre-existing condition coverage that's not affordable. 4. How will the government be allowed to negotiate? I've paid $12 for blood tests with a sticker price of $300 and my insurance company usually has a negotiated rate 1/3 to 1/2 the providers' list prices. A public option that's not allowed to negotiate in the same way as private plans is not going to be a competitive alternative which keeps prices down. 5. What are the likely effects on pricing? A lot of un-insured Americans are young people at the start of their careers for whom insurance is affordable (under $100 for a month even if you're female). Changes in the demographics from which premium prices are derived could make affordability a lot worse.

Too bad that life expectancy is much more strongly influenced by lifestyle choices and diet instead of medical care - was a great soundbite, otherwise. And lifestyle choices are strongly influenced by things like population density which strongly favor healthier Europeans. Higher population density (the United States is ranked 178th world-wide at 80 people per square mile where European countries like the Netherlands break 1000) often mean that it takes less time to use some combination of trains, subways, busses, and human powered transportation for intermediate legs than it would to drive door-to-door. In America, lower population density means that if you want to make exercise like that a side effect of daily activities you have to severely limit where you'll work+live and/or spend a lot more time than it would take to drive.

Sure they do. Mirage and Sunrise offer a number of stock combinations with a larger reserve container. Flite Line used to sell Reflexes with reserve containers 3-4 sizes larger, like an R300 for a 150 reserve and 97 main. At one point I talked to Sunrise and they said they'd build a Wings in any combination but "won't promise it'll look good". Jump Shack will build any combination. Sun Path and UPT don't want our money but there are other options. FWIW, I have a PD143 and Samurai 105.

Not really. The phone company wouldn't sell me DSL without a voice line, so I got the cheapest service possible (a metered business line where even local calls cost money) and didn't connect a phone to it.

Me. Swooping the town fishing pond.

That what I was told on another Russian forum as well. But in my opinion it's flawed since the number of allowances you're supposed to put should be based on "from line H above or from the applicable worksheet on page 2". So I don't see how could you legally put a random number there You can legally claim whatever it takes to get the proper tax withheld. I filed a W4 with over 30 allowances one fourth quarter when I realized that I'd already paid enough taxes to cover my earnings for the rest of the year. Note that there are tax penalties if you withhold too little and don't make quarterly estimated tax payments. You can't just get the tax collected down to zero and send them a check at the end of the year.

$110 to sprint including a 20% discount from signing up whilst working for another employer. 3 phones, unlimited calls between the phones, unlimited text, 1500 minutes to talk to other people

Oh, I know. I had 37 jumps before I bought my gear, good thing I waited and asked around, or I might be on a canopy I didnt like. I had 12 jumps before I bought my gear. I saved over $500 on gear rental (that's after subtracting 1/2 of a repack, $50 for shipping which is way high, and $50 in depreciation which is probably high) by not waiting until jump 37. On a positive note, I actually got to jump 3-4 times a day and learn something instead of once since I was no longer waiting for gear that students had priority on. And I got to jump a canopy closer to accepted experienced jumper wing loadings (probably 180 pounds under a 205 instead of a 295). Following accepted conservative guide lines on canopy down sizing would have meant spending at most an extra 63 jumps on a canopy "I might not like" and even if tapered canopies for beginning skydivers had been available at that time I would not have given up anywhere close to $500 worth of fun. The right answer on when to buy gear is going to have a lot to do with local conditions - you could wait a long time if you were at a not-for-profit club DZ with $5 rentals, little waiting, and smaller-than-first-jump-student gear. Regardless, for normal people it's not going to be before you get cleared for self-supervision.