georgerussia

Translate please :D Seriously, what kind of cream is it? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

I was in San Francisco last year, and felt sick. Only had 30 minutes in the morning. Called several doctors around for an appointment on a short notice, the fourth office called me back and said the doctor agreed to come to the office earlier to see me. And I didn't pay anything since I've got two health insurances, and both of them are paid by our employers (we pay about 50 bucks extra for both, pre-tax). Well, let's compare how much you spend when the year _is_ finished. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

The only way to avoid reverse-racism and reverse-sexism seems to be to vote for transgendered Michael Jackson. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Sure! AND racist or sexist, depending on who you vote. Your only chance is to vote for a 70yo black lady for President! * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

What about "I don't give a shit" option? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

What!?! This huge money-making Verison went against those poor Gautemala and Honduras individuals who spent only 30 minutes talking to their dying moms? They probably think only rich should have the right to call their moms. What a greedy bastards! The only hope is when Hillary wins, the filthy rich people making more than 1K a month will have to pay a "rich tax", which would allow poor people to call whenever country they want. The company was compensated for the money that they paid the people and the cost of the phone call. They put locks on the conference room doors. Then, they found a couple have sex behind the locked door. No Americans on the cleaning staff. Wait until they realize that it is cheaper to import doctors than to increase enrollment in US medical schools, or engineering schools... The cost of infrastructure can be reduced by not building any colleges. I'm going into the Global Warming awareness business. I'm not going to fix it, I'm just going to set up a foundation to make people "aware" of it. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

George W. Bush is already doing his job with his BIG head all of the time. It doesn't really matter. Amazons :P weren't the greatest peacekeepers either. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

I didn't say the ethnic appearance made them look poor. It was the overall appearance of the house and of the tenants. And this was the first (and the only) open house, which was _full_ of people. Wait! I just understood! They were not poor, since how could a poor person afford a plasma HDTV and Ford Mustang? Or it wasn't the point? I got confused. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

This is an issue in Bay Area as well. We're now going to open houses every Sunday, and in EVERY short sale open house we see a HUGE plasma TV in a living room, most of them being HDTV. We've seen well over ten short sales now, and it's everywhere. One of those houses was full of poor-looking Mexicans, and needed some maintenance. But - as you guess - a huge TV and a 2008 Ford Mustang outside. And the owner was trying to tell me how bad he feels to lose "his" home - which, in fact, was never his. Not only he did nothing to earn a little equity himself, they have also lost what the market gave them. I do not feel sorry for such people anymore. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Yes. I used to think like "how could you tell such crap to people" listening to some Bush speeches, and even got an impression that he is not that smart and liar. Now when I heard Hillary the first time, I don't think like that anymore - comparing to her Bush seems to be pretty smart and truth-telling. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

I suspect it depends on what group of people you're talking about - city or country. Less _gun_ crime itself doesn't matter. It doesn't really matter for the murder victim whether the killer used a gun or a hammer. So do you have less crime, or just less gun crime? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Because some parents think it might hurt their little feelings. And that protecting their children feelings is more important than anything else - until they reach 18, of course. Then they release them into real world, and we've got one more person to blame everyone else about their own failures. I wonder what will the next step be. Should all the kids forced to gain more weight, so they would not hurt feelings of overweight kids (up to 25% in some Bay Area shools)? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

The point is that the strategy is dumb :) * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

I once compared offseting with me eating junk food but paying someone else to go to gym instead of me - so our total weight would stay in "reasonable" range. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Basically the current system has the following problems: - People cannot afford healthcare (but do not qualify for Medicare either), or do not want to pay for it. They now abuse ERs. On this basic care system they will abuse basic care rooms to get stuff they cannot get from ERs, and will continue to abuse ERs for everything else. - People with pre-existing conditions cannot get insurance, and go bankrupt and do not pay hospitals after serious illness like bypass or brain surgery. This is not going to change either, since basic care is not paying for this. Basically, long-term care and chronical illness seems to be the thing which draws the costs out of system, and makes people go bancrupt. I do not see how basic care system would change it. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

It's basically the same as "basic healthcare should be available to anyone" statement. And the only problem is, how to define basic healthcare? So far nobody could do it. People just provide examples what should _not_ be covered. Most if not all of those examples are not covered under any reasonable health insurance plan either. Maybe you could do it - could you list things which are currently covered by health insurance but should not be covered by so-called "basic healthcare"? You already said broken arm should. Broken neck? Bypass? Spine damage and following three weeks in intensive care unit? Brain surgery? Then what shouldn't? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

You just said you're addressing the large picture. Are you sure this example really represents the large picture, and not just a single fuckup (which do happen)? There is a small difference between getting illegal descrambler, and beating the people released from the prison, isn't it? And if you and your two friends organize between three of you to mayhem released sex offenders under the name "Establishing the justice", and commit it at least once, you fall under the definition of "organized street gang" as defined in California Penal Code Section 186.22(f). And yes, crimes committed by a criminal street gang are considered "organized crime" according to 186.2(d). We're already doing it. That's what sex offender registration is for. That's only if someone understands that what he is doing is revenge, not justice. If the person thinks it was justice, and he had the right to enforce it, why not? Obviously it won't be based on "I hate gays", it will be based on "what they are doing, is a deadly sin, which should carry a death penalty according to The Book". Could you please provide a couple of links where/when it happened? I do not understand whether you're talking now about self-defense, or about someone who considered himself blessed to enforce the law on his own. Do we ever have large numbers of parents of molested children who have taken the law into thier own hands? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Because the crime is more serious. The cops should not ask themselves anything, nor the cops should make a decision regarding how much threat someone represents to the public. For that we have judges and jurors. The cops are to enforce the existing laws. And if we look on the situation from that angle, here's what we get. A serial rapist was released on parole after serving jail time (it looks very unlikely to me that a serial rapist could ever get a parole without serving some jail time). I suspect that someone have to show excellent behavior to get out of jail on parole. Especially in such case - we're not talking about someone illegally downloading music from Internet, we're talking about a serial rapist, who - if released early and committed a crime - could attract a lot of media attention. So I'd assume that this person definitely did extraordinary good to be released on parole, and the law at that moment has no questions to him. Now look at the mob. In terms of law we have an organized gang, which assembled with intention to commit a crime against a person. I do not know the details of U.S. law, but in the most countries I've lived the organized crime does take much more attention from the law, and always carries stiffer penalties. Actually just the fact they assembled there with such intention, were going to do it, but stopped by law enforcement, might be already a crime punishable by jail time. And this is correct. The person who has justifies himself to take a law enforcement into their own hands is already dangerous. Today he decides a released convict should be punished by some broken bones. And tomorrow the same person will kick the shit out of another person who, he thinks, looked lustfully on his daughter (or on his ass in a gym). After all, if he already decided that the law sucks and does not do the job, so he has to do it - why should he ever stop? Why not to kick the shit out of some gays then, who violate the Highest Law? My opinion that it depends on the circumstances the person gets hurt, not on the kind of person who gets hurt. Maybe I missed something, but a person who is organizing a mob to beat someone released from jail after serving several years there does not look for me a "decent person reacting to extreme circumstances" at all. And if you ever talk to a criminal, most of them will tell you that they did not want to commit any crime, they were victim of extreme circumstances and society abuse, and should be released from the jail immediately. Nobody was born as a criminal - everyone is born as decent citizen. It depends. He could beat the shit out of you because he thinks you want to molest his daughter, or you look similar to someone from the sex offender list (the pics there are pretty crappy quality anyway). * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

I'd say it is different in most posts - I worked hard to earn mine, and others should work hard to get theis. It's fine to provide it for free for those who are truly unable to work hard, but not for those who consider themselves taumatized for life because they were called an idiot once in the elementary school. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Because at the moment the so-called-good guy hurt someone, he becomes a bad guy, and we're now talking about one bad guy hurting another bad guy. And murder is more serious crime than rape. And why you think the law "goes back to business as usual"? You're pissed off that a bad guy could be released on parole? Or you think that each crime should carry a death penalty or life sentense (so good guys won't have to hurt bad guys)? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

I second that. When I checked the potential property zip code with my realtor, there were 53 persons registered showed on the map. I asked him like it supposed to be an upscale neighborhood, and it looks like a ghetto; what's that? So he showed me several other zip codes, including the one I live now. 48 persons registered. After checking a couple more, we understood that Silicon Valley is so full of sex offenders, so we should lock our children at home till they are 18. The first one I checked from the list was a person whose crime was "annoy/molest children". Sure if he molested them, he should be in the list. But why is "annoy" here? Doesn't make sense. The second was "indecent exposure". Pah. Why the database couldn't just show me ONLY the list of the people who committed a crime against a child, not mixing them with those who has been caught peeing in a public park? I don't understand that. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

I would agree with you if the person in question was escaped from the jail. However it looks like he was conditionally released by authorities, so I assumed it was done according to the law. Then the job was done properly. If the good guys do not like the law which allows that, they have the vote power to change it. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

I'm not going to take the moral high road. I'm trying to say that solving violence with violence usually only brings even more violence. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

So if they just used USPS, you'd get a check for $17.55 instead? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Then they'll have to go through this expense to get your $10. But since they're in the business of making money, they would calculate that $10 is not worth it, and you'll get nothing from it anyway. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *