Southern_Man

Well, you won, who is it going to be? "What if there were no hypothetical questions?"

As I understand it, most of it was her money. She was her own constituent (eligible to vote for herself), so all of that would be permissible by your standards. John Corzine, Michael Bloomberg, and others have won largely self-funded elections. Whitman lost hers. I have a problem banning "corporate" money in that any law also targets non-profit organizations. Among such organizations are things like the ARC, the SPCA, the Sierra Club, the NRA, and others. Hard to ban the "corporate" money without banning these as well. "What if there were no hypothetical questions?"

It's a proposed constitutional amendment, so it would overturn the Supreme Court. Not a chance in hell it gets any traction. I suspect the sponsor doesn't think so either, but can earn populist political points by introducing it. "What if there were no hypothetical questions?"

For those who don't get it, no explanation will be sufficient, for those who get it, no explanation is necessary. "What if there were no hypothetical questions?"

Asking immigration status is done all the time for various reasons in Virginia--e.g. some police departments ask at some for their stops (agreement w/ federal ICE), social service departments confirm eligibility when people apply for benefits, etc. There are currently no provisions either to require or prohibit school administrators from asking immigration status in Virginia as far as I can tell. This bill doesn't do anything to effect anybody's eligibility for public education. I'm not sure what the point is. "What if there were no hypothetical questions?"

Personally, I always figured the physical stuff should progress at the same rate as the emotional/social/intellectual connection did. Getting ahead of yourself physically just seems to cause problems and be not fulfilling. I don't think you can really put a time table (or a price tag) on that. But I do think if the relationship is not progressing in a direction that the parties want, it is beneficial to call it quits at some point before you go too far down the road. "What if there were no hypothetical questions?"

I think that is not the way a democrat would describe their platform or their philosophy. More like a Republican caricature of Dems. How many weeks have the Dems extended the you do not have to work to get paid to? How many child care programs do we need? How many food stamp programs are needed? The list goes on And no, I do not advocate removing a safety net to help those who really need it but what we get now is exesive Maybe you call it not wanting responsibility and prefering the government to take care of them. I don't think Democrats would refer to those programs that way. They would call it providing a social safety net (which you just said we need, so you agree on the general concept, just not the particulars). I'm neither a democrat nor a republican but I don't think it is constructive to always view the opposing party through your own philosophical lens. That's all. I guess if we didn't do that about 3/4ths of the content of Speaker's Corner would go out the window, though. "What if there were no hypothetical questions?"

I think that is not the way a democrat would describe their platform or their philosophy. More like a Republican caricature of Dems. "What if there were no hypothetical questions?"

This would be my problem--losing googles, not a big deal, losing my glasses would suck. My eyesight isn't bad but I have a pretty good astigmatism. Depth perception is sort of important for landing. "What if there were no hypothetical questions?"

Do hate speech laws apply extra-territorially? Well, they can't arrest him because of something he said somewhere else. They can deny him entrance to their country on that basis, however, just as the U.S. can do. I am pretty close to a free-speech absolutist but this is their country and their rules. "What if there were no hypothetical questions?"

Blah....both the democrats and republicans are running a kleptocracy anyway. "What if there were no hypothetical questions?"

What new laws do you think are responsible for that decline, which were not in place when crime was rising? How about all those concealed handgun carry laws that have spread across the country over the last 20 years? The fact is, crime goes up and down, independent of whatever laws are passed. The number of laws always increases over time, while crime charts go up and down like roller coasters. There is no correlation. The largest correlations I've seen link crime to population demographics. Pretty compelling. "What if there were no hypothetical questions?"

Well, usually they offer me at least $300 "What if there were no hypothetical questions?"

those are some prize winning horses! But can they tuck him in bed? This could be a serious problem and road hazard around me if Old Order Mennonites went out drinking. "What if there were no hypothetical questions?"

Sorry, but this is highly dependent on the company. I currently have Blue Cross/Blue Shield, who are indeed as you state. HOWEVER, a few years ago I had CIGNA, which was terrible. Every claim ended up in a dispute, or underpayment, or other error which took great persistence to resolve. By amazing chance, EVERY error was in CIGNA's favor. I was later told by someone in the medical field that CIGNA has a reputation throughout the healthcare industry for this behavior. I can imagine that anyone with mental illness who has to deal with CIGNA would have a very hard time. I'll note that I don't really want to be in the debate defending insurance companies. I am sure some are better and some are worse. Thee vast majority of the people my agency deals with either have Medicaid, Medicare, or have no insurance at all. At least in the areas I know much about. The few people with severe and persistent mental illness with private insurance, we don't seem to have any problems getting psychiatric treatment or therapy approved. The biggest problem is getting certain drugs approved that need preauthorization. It can be done, just some hoops to jump through. People in for substance abuse treatment have private insurance at a higher rate but substance abuse is an entirely different area with different rules and I don't have enough experience to comment meaninfully on it. "What if there were no hypothetical questions?"

I read the article. I also may have a different perspective from some, since I work in a Community Mental Health Center. I work primarily with people with intellectual disabilities not mental illness (although quite a few of the persons on my case load have both). I'm not an expert, specifically because services differ in different places and I am really only familiar with the services available in my local area. I am a little familiar with general trends in the field, however. I find the article based on a lot of anecdote and stated premises that I am not sure are correct: 1. I do not believe that it is hard to get psychiatric care. Every state has an agency or agencies devoted to provide care for people with mental health, intellectual disabilities, and substance abuse services. Often this is through a department of social services but there are other arrangements as well. These agencies receive public funding and serve people with Medicaid as well as private insurance. For those without insurance there is sliding scale. For most people at my local agency this amounts to a fee of $6 a month. For people with higher incomes it may be more. These agencies may offer many different programs such as: case management, psycho-social rehabilitation programs, psychiatric services, emergency services, counseling in various modalities, mental health support services, residential services, and crisis stabilization programs. Not everybody qualifies for every program but there is a wide array of services available for people with little resources. Also, public mental health may be quite a bit different from private mental health. Overall I think it is quite a stretch to state that it is harder to get a gun then it is to get psychiatric care--it is certainly not difficult to find psychiatric care if you really want it. 2. I think the author overstates the power of insurance companies. There is quite a bit of paperwork involved and I would not want to defend the system as being in any way efficient but we do not run into problems with insurance companies denying hospitalizations. Getting drugs approved can also be a pain but we have a very, very high success rate on getting pre-authorizations approved when we need to prescribe something that needs it. Also, the drug companies have generous indigent programs for people without insurance. In any case, this is provided as anecdote--there is just a naked assertion and no facts to dispute. 3. It is still more than possible to get somebody committed when they show that they are unable to care for themselves or that they are a danger to themselves or others. This is a fairly straightforward process in VA (and in the wake of the Cho tragedy we made the criteria easier to hold them), I am not sure about the process in other states. It takes the willingness of friends, community members, and psychiatric professionals to make reports when appropriate. 4. I think I have a huge philosophical difference with the author. I do not believe it is appropriate to restrict people's rights when there is no proven threat. I am glad that we do not institutionalize people with mental illness for long, long periods without adequate safeguards. I am glad that we do not routinely force people to receive treatment against their will (again, this can be done through court orders when there is a demonstrated need but the bar is high). Yes, our system is not perfect--in particular it is difficult to predict who might become violent--of course this is difficult in the population at large as well. I do not think large-scale denials of people's human rights is appropriate. I do know a lot about the history of the field and anybody (including the author of the article) who believes that the old system was better displays a huge amount of willful ignorance of the horrors of institutionalization and the de-humanization of people with mental illness. It was an absolutely horrific system and what we have today is orders of magnitude better. "What if there were no hypothetical questions?"

This Mark Knopfler thing is happeningi n Canada. They have different laws regarding speech than we do in the U.S.A. (and also different from other parts of the worl). I prefer ours. The Mark Twain decision is simply a commercial editorial decision. Some publisher thinks they can attract more sales by changing the N* word out of there. Other publishers can continue with the original (since the work is in the public domain). I would choose to solicit the one that is not changed. I find changes like this much less odious than changes mandated by government. "What if there were no hypothetical questions?"

Makes me happy that I live in a country where this is not an issue. Every system has its weaknesses. We have to put up with some abysmal hate speech like the Westboro Baptist Church crowd but on balance I would always choose more freedom of expression "What if there were no hypothetical questions?"

There is open carry in VA. "What if there were no hypothetical questions?"

Nah, you just have to call out your corrections to the pilot....30 left, now another 30 left... "What if there were no hypothetical questions?"

Jim, Seems to me you could do your own live training just about any weekend you wanted at West Point? Just wait a few seconds on the spot... "What if there were no hypothetical questions?"

Jurisdiction issues? Seems this may be enchroaching on federal responsibilities. "What if there were no hypothetical questions?"

Cornbread (and pretty much everything else) there is awful. Cornbread is very, very easy to make at home and about 1000% better. "What if there were no hypothetical questions?"

You mean like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGUG1aCUY2o "What if there were no hypothetical questions?"

I organized 12 people to make tandem jumps last August. Almost all of the coordination and connections were done through Facebook. "What if there were no hypothetical questions?"