TomAiello

By making only the most basic level of medical care available without showing ability to pay. Another option would be to let people borrow from a government backed medical expenses fund, to be repayed in the future, and with bankruptcy not allowing discharge. Kind of like student loans, but for emergency medical expenses. Interesting thought...how would you guarantee payment? Garnishment, like a defaulted student loan? Yes. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Yes, but do you have enough .308 Pmags? They're taking pre-orders now... -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

By making only the most basic level of medical care available without showing ability to pay. Another option would be to let people borrow from a government backed medical expenses fund, to be repayed in the future, and with bankruptcy not allowing discharge. Kind of like student loans, but for emergency medical expenses. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Causation is hotly debated. Do you really think the consumer public would have caused that particular problem were it not stated government policy to "encourage home ownership" even when such encouragement meant chartering corporations whose main purpose was to get people to take out mortgages? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

If he can reduce the deficit (and resulting debt), without raising taxes, I'll be very impressed. In fact, if he can do that, I'll vote for him. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Did you read the NYT article yesterday, about the most recent poll results? It was very interesting. The upshot was that while a majority (I think there number was higher than the one you posted) of Americans think the President is doing a good job, only a minority (less than 50%) support his healthcare plan, support the bailouts, support increasing government debt, believing that his stimulus plan is actually helping the economy, or believing there is a credible plan for reducing the deficit. The only major policy area where the administration had better then 50% approval was foreign policy (where they just appear to be reading from the last administration's playbook). Basically, while the people appear to like Obama, they are a bit less enthusiastic about his actual policies, at least on the domestic front. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Hard to get the tax deduction on an anonymous donation. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Apart from aesthetics, what were the problems? Unacceptably high rate of mag-related issues, mostly feeding problems (no feed, double feed). -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I'm pretty sure you mean elderberries--and any parents smelling of them. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Actually, SBR's, SBS's, and MG's were already in use in most military's at the time. The SC decision was won simply because the defense did not even bother to show up. Reportedly, this was because the local public defender who had been assigned the case wasn't even informed it was being heard by the SCOTUS, and only learned about it two days before oral arguments, leaving him insufficient time to prepare and travel, even if (a) it had been in his budget to do so, and (b) he had wanted to. They did know it, individually. It's just that because it wasn't presented in arguments, they weren't allowed to "know" it in their decision. Interestingly, that leaves open an pretty good avenue for either reversing or just ignoring Miller. You could either claim that the SCOTUS made a clear error of fact (by not realizing that the weapons were in military use), or you could argue that they meant the ruling only to apply to non-military weapons (as they stated) and that therefore machine guns (for example) ought to be exempted. In fact, the issue of whether the NFA is constitutional when applied to machine guns has never been litigated. Realistically, I can't see the court doing the right thing there, but it sure would be interesting to see the case. I'm also very interested to see what happens when the ATF starts busting people in Montana under the NFA in the fall. I'm hoping that someone there has been smart enough to requisition a bunch of "made in Montana" exempted firearms for the state patrol, so that original jurisdiction will lie in the SCOTUS. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

No, no, no. Charities hate Muslims! -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

If Ron Paul, M.D. did it, itd be an open town hall. (It'd have to be "M.D." because the left give instant credibility to education. Especially "relevant" education. M.D. competing against a lawyer on health care debate. The left would faun over Dr. Paul's experience and education being superior to some piss ant lawyer." Given their relative backgrounds, I'd love to see Ron Paul and John Edwards discuss malpractice lawsuits, especially those related to births. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

In that case, ok. I didn't read the article. I read the original post, which made it sound like an official State department request ("the State Department asked...") Uh ... "asks"? Perhaps your interpretation is not the fault of the OP, eh? How about owning it? Uh..."The State Department". That made it appear to me that the State Department had made an official request. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Sorry, I only just came back to this thread. Was this from awhile back or recently? Reason I ask is that Jenni had the surgery on April 29th, and the pain of recovery is there, but getting better every day. I always have pain, and probably always will. But, I think she's going to do better than that. After my major incident and surgery, I had pretty minimal pain, and felt pretty good. Of course, that made me go out and get into more trouble (which didn't result in surgery, but did require a body cast for a few months), and that has given me the level of pain I have now, which I expect to keep until/unless I get more surgery (my surgeon advised putting it off as long as possible--like 20 years). The lesson is: If you ever break yor back, for god's sake don't do it again. I doubt it. I'm not on any painkillers now. We tried a bunch of different stuff, the best of which was the time release fentanyl patches, but eventually I decided I'd rather be clear and deal with some pain than be a little foggy all the time. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

They were more like thousands of little electronic funds transfers done on the internet. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I'm so tempted to give Bill his "one warning" Must stop posting after so much beer... -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

In that case, ok. I didn't read the article. I read the original post, which made it sound like an official State department request ("the State Department asked...") -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Yep. The whole thing is a joke. If you read the actual PETA posting about it, it's easy to see that. They don't give a rip. I'm curious to see if the mainstream right press makes the mistake of trying to turn this into a media event. People really need to learn to focus on the real issues. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Anyone have an opinion on the best (5.56) magazines for an AR? I'm partial to the HK mags, but they're pretty spendy. I've beat up a lot of PMags, and they seem to work best for the low end of the price range. I also bought some of the CMMG "Immortal" mags that have been pretty good, so far. I've used a lot of mil-spec (mostly Colt) mags, and haven't been as impressed with them. I also like the Barrett 6.8 mags. If they made a 5.56 version, I might be tempted away from the HK's for them. Anyone got any thoughts? I'd especially be interested to hear from LouDiamond, or anyone else who's actually had to count on the damn things in a real situation. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I think that the fact the State department even thought to ask a private business, and wasted the effort to do it, was lame. The farthest it should have gone was one guy at State having the idea, calling up someone at Twitter and suggesting it. Any official request is too much, in my opinion. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Have you seen what they do to those poor soy beans to make tofu? It's disgustingly inhumane. I've started a new organization to speak out on behalf of the soy mistreatment in the tofu industry. It's called People for the Ethical Treatment of Soy (P.E.T.S.). -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Lame. Twitter is a private business. The State department (and the rest of the government) should mind it's own business and let Twitter mind itself. Honestly, if Twitter is getting that much traffic from Iran, I'd expect them to want to delay the shutdown on their own anyway. They've been pretty careful to build their brand with events like this, and it'd be silly of them to miss the opportunity. But in the end, it's their business--not the State departments. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Hopefully, things like this will push the "impose your morality on others" folks to be a bit quieter in the Republican alliance. I think that they alienate a lot of people, and cost the larger group votes by association. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Well, you've got your criteria. Go out and find the answer, and report back. We'll be waiting. Almost anyone can come up with examples to prove that one side or the other is wealthy, white and male (Ted Kennedy? John Kerry? George Bush?). If you seek real numbers, I encourage you to go get them. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

And many more don't even bother to hold them. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com