dannym3141:

Claiming that people should stop burning fossil fuels would HEAVILY dent the income of just about every country because of how much tax they can charge from it. Britain's economy is almost based on fossil fuel tax. How can you possibly argue that they are a politically influenced source over fossil fuel use when they criticise such a money earner?

Politics aside, fossil fuels remain the cheapest, most abundant source of energy, and new supplies of it are being discovered all the time. I never said people should stop burning them.

I hesitate to even mention that "science" as a global community is above reproach in ways that hardly anything else can be due to the method of a scientist. If you are not performing science for truth and discovery, you are not a scientist, so you're not part of the community anymore. That's why it's above reproach. I'm sure you'll argue with me about that, but i know that you'd argue about the time of day if you were proven to be wrong.

I'm not arguing, but I am astonished you would believe scientists are above politics (and reproach), not because the scientific method is flawed, but because scientists are fallible humans with their own beliefs and interests. As W. Pennypacker said in so many words, governments reward scientists which confirm a pre-determined outcome (like secondhand smoke killing 100 billion people a year). Junk science is real; it may not be everywhere, but it's out there. And not just "the oil companies" which have "scientitians" in their corner.

Another thing, gang. Over the last few years, global warming hysteria has been relentless. It's the alarmists who declared, "The debate is over." There was even one smug a-hole who compared "climate deniers" to Holocaust deniers. Classy! There was the faked data scandal. These are not the actions of scientists confident in their conclusions. Yet the lazy media continues to back the alarmists without question.

100 storylines blaming climate change as the problem:

1. The deaths of Aspen trees in the West
2. Incredible shrinking sheep
3. Caribbean coral deaths
4. Eskimos forced to leave their village
5. Disappearing lake in Chile
6. Early heat wave in Vietnam
7. Malaria and water-borne diseases in Africa
8. Invasion of jellyfish in the Mediterranean
9. Break in the Arctic Ice Shelf
10. Monsoons in India
11. Birds laying their eggs early
12. 160,000 deaths a year
13. 315,000 deaths a year
14. 300,000 deaths a year
15. Decline in snowpack in the West
16. Deaths of walruses in Alaska
17. Hunger in Nepal
18. The appearance of oxygen-starved dead zones in the oceans
19. Surge in fatal shark attacks
20. Increasing number of typhoid cases in the Philippines
21. Boy Scout tornado deaths
22. Rise in asthma and hayfever
23. Duller fall foliage in 2007
24. Floods in Jakarta
25. Radical ecological shift in the North Sea
26. Snowfall in Baghdad
27. Western tree deaths
28. Diminishing desert resources
29. Pine beetles
30. Swedish beetles
31. Severe acne
32. Global conflict
33. Crash of Air France 447
34. Black Hawk Down incident
35. Amphibians breeding earlier
36. Flesh-eating disease
37. Global cooling
38. Bird strikes on US Airways 1549
39. Beer tastes different
40. Cougar attacks in Alberta
41. Suicide of farmers in Australia
42. Squirrels reproduce earlier
43. Monkeys moving to Great Rift Valley in Kenya
44. Confusion of migrating birds
45. Bigger tuna fish
46. Water shortages in Las Vegas
47. Worldwide hunger
48. Longer days
49. Earth spinning faster
50. Gender balance of crocodiles
51. Skin cancer deaths in UK
52. Increase in kidney stones in India
53. Penguin chicks frozen by global warming
54. Deaths of Minnesota moose
55. Increased threat of HIV/AIDS in developing countries
56. Increase of wasps in Alaska
57. Killer stingrays off British coasts
58. All societal collapses since the beginning of time
59. Bigger spiders
60. Increase in size of giant squid
61. Increase of orchids in UK
62. Collapse of gingerbread houses in Sweden
63. Cow infertility
64. Conflict in Darfur
65. Bluetongue outbreak in UK cows
66. Worldwide wars
67. Insomnia of children worried about global warming
68. Anxiety problems for people worried about climate change
69. Migration of cockroaches
70. Taller mountains due to melting glaciers
71. Drowning of four polar bears
72. UFO sightings in the UK
73. Hurricane Katrina
74. Greener mountains in Sweden
75. Decreased maple in maple trees
76. Cold wave in India
77. Worse traffic in LA because immigrants moving north
78. Increase in heart attacks and strokes
79. Rise in insurance premiums
80. Invasion of European species of earthworm in UK
81. Cold spells in Australia
82. Increase in crime
83. Boiling oceans
84. Grizzly deaths
85. Dengue fever
86. Lack of monsoons
87. Caterpillars devouring 45 towns in Liberia
88. Acid rain recovery
89. Global wheat shortage; food price hikes
90. Extinction of 13 species in Bangladesh
91. Changes in swan migration patterns in Siberia
92. The early arrival of Turkey’s endangered caretta carettas
93. Radical North Sea shift
94. Heroin addiction
95. Plant species climbing up mountains
96. Deadly fires in Australia
97. Droughts in Australia
98. The demise of California’s agriculture by the end of the century
99. Tsunami in South East Asia
100. Fashion victim: the death of the winter wardrobe


Do you really expect free people to surrender to THIS?

indeed.

Much of my work is on somatic theory.
Chiropractic, as an osteopathy derivative, has some solid basis in that they look at nerve compression at the spine, and while it is certainly true that decompressing innervation at the spine can help with other problems, such as GI issues and asthma, in a technique sense they are only focusing on one aspect of distortion - that of restriction at the spine. However, once there is a distortion at the spine (the bottom of the brain) it becomes a whole body pattern and issue...which requires far more time, patience, and attention to detail than merely popping a facet joint. It requires the type of time and patience that is non-existent in most of western medicine, or chiropractic. The body is a seamless whole.

It's very hard to make a lot of money doing this work.
But a chiro can pop 10 people an hour. A western doc can write 40 scrips an hour.

Massage is typically working by accident. It helps, but it is premised on a muscular approach, which is incredibly misleading. Muscles may dominate the body in terms of size, but they are a reactive system, not a controlling system, and the lowest man on the totem pole in terms of the hierarchy of survival mechanisms. Physical therapy is also stuck on the muscular approach to the body. In fact, this approach typically dominates western thought when it comes to somatic/structural distortion/pain. And most people go to hospitals with essentially somatic complaints. See where i'm going with this?

Harrington rods for scoliosis should one day be properly viewed as barbaric.


In reply to this comment by gwiz665:
A friend of mine had scoliosis, at least I think that what she had, I never heard the proper medical term for it. She had it corrected by doctors inserting some metal rods by her spine, so now her back is all stiff - I'm a little vague on the details since it's a while since I heard the story.

In any case, I agree that we must also heavily scrutinize the medical system, since companies go where the profits are, and if there are no profits to be had, then that kind of medicine is discarded and abandoned. This is what has happened with many potential cancer treatments, since there is less profit in un-patentable formulas than those that can be patented.

If your methods actually do work consistently then it would certainly stand up to scientific standards, it must be replicable and verifiable and that's basically it. The problem is that often it works like "magic" and heals some, but not all with what appears to be the same illness. This is due to a lack of understanding of what is actually wrong with a patient.

The back and nervous system is notoriously hard to "fix" since few people understand it very well and each person is unique (to some extent).

Some "alternative" medicines are perinormal - they work, but we don't know it yet. They are essentially medicines, but we have not determined precisely how and why they help. "Home remedies" are really a proto-version of alternative medicines in this way, in that someone once used it and it worked. Others, like homeopathy, are demonstrably false and are indeed scams. The make wild claims based on nothing but superstition and humbug.

Prayer is also not medicine. If you get bitten by a snake and pray for the venom to leave your body, you die.

The court of public opinion is highly subjective and cannot be trusted to make reliable judgments. This is why the scientific method exists - to eliminate the need for "he said, she said".

It is smart to be weary of the medicinal industry, I'll grant you that, but your doctor is not an arm of that - he (or she) is a healer, that is their goal. I am deeply troubled when certain doctors are influenced by incentives that go against the patient's best interest - it does happen, medicinal firms offering bonuses if you use their products even though they're inferior and so on. But the fact remains that this inferior product has still gone through channels which ensure that it does work, alternative medicine does not.

It is absolutely imperative that people are not deceived to believe that some treatments do more than they think, like when chiropractic offers treatments to non-musceloskeletal problems like ADHD or asthma. It may help your back, fair enough, I've cracked my own back and I think it helps, because it feels good - chocolate feels good too, but it doesn't help my health.

The second such a snake oil salesman does not want to stand up to proper scrutiny is when he has revealed himself to be a fraud. Because if his method is disproved, then he cannot fake it anymore.

I do not doubt that massage therapy does offer relief and helps with muscle problems, I could also believe that chiropractic helps with joint pain, muscle pain or some skeletal problems - but they must be studied and analysed properly and not just pretend like it works, we must know WHY it works.

In reply to this comment by criticalthud:
Some great insights.
My difficulty is in the gross generalizations that are taking place.
I do what some people call "alternative" medicine. I don't necessarily take exception to that title given the state of western medicine.
Growing up with a scoliosis I searched for different approaches to fix the problem, and eventually ended up practicing and teaching manual therapy from a neurological model of the body, focusing on rotational distortion. It is essentially cutting edge, and i can do things with a spine that would make a western neurosurgeon question his approach.

However I may not stand up to scrutiny by western standards, since I essentially view the body in a much different manner, and certainly work with it in a much different manner.
Tomorrow however, may be a different story, as it has been with acupuncture, massage, osteopathy, non-freudian psychology, or any number of treatments that have made their way into the mainstream. Scrutiny is often the court of public opinion, although this court of opinion is greatly effected by what we have been brought up to believe and who we automatically give status and credibility to.

I think it is essential that all practitioners of the healing arts, including western medicine, realize that our actual knowledge of the human body, it's functions, and it's abilities, is very small. And it is exceedingly important to keep those doors to possibilities open.

At the same time, it is incumbent upon us to heavily scrutinize the current accepted treatments which are more often than not inadequate, reliant upon drugs, or are barbaric in nature. At the same time we must heavily scrutinize an overall system which is premised on the industry making a profit, which lends itself to indefinitely treating symptoms rather than preventative medicine.

In reply to this comment by gwiz665:
Scientific method.

"Alternative" medicine wants to do the same thing as Intelligent Design, it wants to take the easy road. ID wants to be in the class room without having sufficient evidence to support its claim. Alternative medicine wants to be sold and used to heal sick people. The latter is fine and even admirable, if it works, but there is insufficient evidence to support the claims that alternative medicine makes.

If you buy a service from me that I cannot provide, then you have been scammed and my claim was bunk. This is what alternative medicine does.

Defining alternative, it's medicine that hasn't gone through thorough scrutiny and does not stand up to it. It is medicine that doesn't work.

Pick your poison: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_medicine Homeopathy, Chiropractic, energy therapy, crystals all that stuff.

Regarding massage and acupuncture, I'm in a more relaxed approach, because they don't promise magical solutions. Massage works at healing muscle pain, certainly, and it certainly relaxing. Acupuncture, I don't have sufficient knowledge about to make a definitive judgment about. Naturally, I'm skeptical, because as far as I know, it has not been tested to the proper extent that it should to be called medicine. When I read about more details of it "Qi" and whatnot - I get more skeptical.

It may work, but it should be tested experimentally, before making claims of healing.

People are allowed to use their money as they want, but these things should damn well not be able to call themselves medicine. Relaxation, sure, therapy, perhaps, healing - no.

In reply to this comment by criticalthud:
would you care to define alternative? do you mean non-american, non-western?
does acupuncture stand up to western scrutiny? how about manual therapy? who's scrutiny are you talking about? Tell me how you measure what people FEEL with a machine, or a bloodtest.
how well does typical western medicine deal with back pain? - drugs, drugs, more drugs?
how about a scoliosis? neurological strain patterns? any chronic pain issue?
western medicine, relies on over-drugging it's patients, treating each as a number. What and how they practice is often completely controlled by insurance companies.
perhaps your statement doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
sure there is crap out there, but lets not pretend that western medicine is immune. far from it, it's peddling a good portion of the stinkiest garbage.



In reply to this comment by gwiz665:
Alternative medicine is bunk. Like alternative math or alternative reason.

If there was any truth to it, it would stand up to scrutiny and it would be used as proper treatment. Homeopathy especially is downright fraud.

*debunked

A friend of mine had scoliosis, at least I think that what she had, I never heard the proper medical term for it. She had it corrected by doctors inserting some metal rods by her spine, so now her back is all stiff - I'm a little vague on the details since it's a while since I heard the story.

In any case, I agree that we must also heavily scrutinize the medical system, since companies go where the profits are, and if there are no profits to be had, then that kind of medicine is discarded and abandoned. This is what has happened with many potential cancer treatments, since there is less profit in un-patentable formulas than those that can be patented.

If your methods actually do work consistently then it would certainly stand up to scientific standards, it must be replicable and verifiable and that's basically it. The problem is that often it works like "magic" and heals some, but not all with what appears to be the same illness. This is due to a lack of understanding of what is actually wrong with a patient.

The back and nervous system is notoriously hard to "fix" since few people understand it very well and each person is unique (to some extent).

Some "alternative" medicines are perinormal - they work, but we don't know it yet. They are essentially medicines, but we have not determined precisely how and why they help. "Home remedies" are really a proto-version of alternative medicines in this way, in that someone once used it and it worked. Others, like homeopathy, are demonstrably false and are indeed scams. The make wild claims based on nothing but superstition and humbug.

Prayer is also not medicine. If you get bitten by a snake and pray for the venom to leave your body, you die.

The court of public opinion is highly subjective and cannot be trusted to make reliable judgments. This is why the scientific method exists - to eliminate the need for "he said, she said".

It is smart to be weary of the medicinal industry, I'll grant you that, but your doctor is not an arm of that - he (or she) is a healer, that is their goal. I am deeply troubled when certain doctors are influenced by incentives that go against the patient's best interest - it does happen, medicinal firms offering bonuses if you use their products even though they're inferior and so on. But the fact remains that this inferior product has still gone through channels which ensure that it does work, alternative medicine does not.

It is absolutely imperative that people are not deceived to believe that some treatments do more than they think, like when chiropractic offers treatments to non-musceloskeletal problems like ADHD or asthma. It may help your back, fair enough, I've cracked my own back and I think it helps, because it feels good - chocolate feels good too, but it doesn't help my health.

The second such a snake oil salesman does not want to stand up to proper scrutiny is when he has revealed himself to be a fraud. Because if his method is disproved, then he cannot fake it anymore.

I do not doubt that massage therapy does offer relief and helps with muscle problems, I could also believe that chiropractic helps with joint pain, muscle pain or some skeletal problems - but they must be studied and analysed properly and not just pretend like it works, we must know WHY it works.

In reply to this comment by criticalthud:
Some great insights.
My difficulty is in the gross generalizations that are taking place.
I do what some people call "alternative" medicine. I don't necessarily take exception to that title given the state of western medicine.
Growing up with a scoliosis I searched for different approaches to fix the problem, and eventually ended up practicing and teaching manual therapy from a neurological model of the body, focusing on rotational distortion. It is essentially cutting edge, and i can do things with a spine that would make a western neurosurgeon question his approach.

However I may not stand up to scrutiny by western standards, since I essentially view the body in a much different manner, and certainly work with it in a much different manner.
Tomorrow however, may be a different story, as it has been with acupuncture, massage, osteopathy, non-freudian psychology, or any number of treatments that have made their way into the mainstream. Scrutiny is often the court of public opinion, although this court of opinion is greatly effected by what we have been brought up to believe and who we automatically give status and credibility to.

I think it is essential that all practitioners of the healing arts, including western medicine, realize that our actual knowledge of the human body, it's functions, and it's abilities, is very small. And it is exceedingly important to keep those doors to possibilities open.

At the same time, it is incumbent upon us to heavily scrutinize the current accepted treatments which are more often than not inadequate, reliant upon drugs, or are barbaric in nature. At the same time we must heavily scrutinize an overall system which is premised on the industry making a profit, which lends itself to indefinitely treating symptoms rather than preventative medicine.

In reply to this comment by gwiz665:
Scientific method.

"Alternative" medicine wants to do the same thing as Intelligent Design, it wants to take the easy road. ID wants to be in the class room without having sufficient evidence to support its claim. Alternative medicine wants to be sold and used to heal sick people. The latter is fine and even admirable, if it works, but there is insufficient evidence to support the claims that alternative medicine makes.

If you buy a service from me that I cannot provide, then you have been scammed and my claim was bunk. This is what alternative medicine does.

Defining alternative, it's medicine that hasn't gone through thorough scrutiny and does not stand up to it. It is medicine that doesn't work.

Pick your poison: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_medicine Homeopathy, Chiropractic, energy therapy, crystals all that stuff.

Regarding massage and acupuncture, I'm in a more relaxed approach, because they don't promise magical solutions. Massage works at healing muscle pain, certainly, and it certainly relaxing. Acupuncture, I don't have sufficient knowledge about to make a definitive judgment about. Naturally, I'm skeptical, because as far as I know, it has not been tested to the proper extent that it should to be called medicine. When I read about more details of it "Qi" and whatnot - I get more skeptical.

It may work, but it should be tested experimentally, before making claims of healing.

People are allowed to use their money as they want, but these things should damn well not be able to call themselves medicine. Relaxation, sure, therapy, perhaps, healing - no.

In reply to this comment by criticalthud:
would you care to define alternative? do you mean non-american, non-western?
does acupuncture stand up to western scrutiny? how about manual therapy? who's scrutiny are you talking about? Tell me how you measure what people FEEL with a machine, or a bloodtest.
how well does typical western medicine deal with back pain? - drugs, drugs, more drugs?
how about a scoliosis? neurological strain patterns? any chronic pain issue?
western medicine, relies on over-drugging it's patients, treating each as a number. What and how they practice is often completely controlled by insurance companies.
perhaps your statement doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
sure there is crap out there, but lets not pretend that western medicine is immune. far from it, it's peddling a good portion of the stinkiest garbage.



In reply to this comment by gwiz665:
Alternative medicine is bunk. Like alternative math or alternative reason.

If there was any truth to it, it would stand up to scrutiny and it would be used as proper treatment. Homeopathy especially is downright fraud.

*debunked

>> ^GenjiKilpatrick:
Ha, right. Condescend to the female ninja with ENORMOUS throwing knives.
Your bold logic puts me in awe sometimes. =P
>> ^rottenseed:
Why don't you do something constructive with those knives and use them to spread mayonnaise on my sandwich



She needs to be knocked down a few notches. Not physically, but mentally. My guess is she was an ugly duckling. Possibly a kung fu movie nerd with glasses, asthma and bad acne — looking for a way to escape. She got older, her face cleared, she got contacts and gained some martial arts skills through years of training to protect against bullies. Beneath that tough facade though, there is still that insecure nerd looking for acceptance. She needs to be broken down and built back up into the sandwich making machine she is.


...and that's how you build a plausible story with absolutely no information at all

Beyond the baby and it's pulley system. I thought the person laughing was about to have an asthma attack. Anyone else?

What gets me about the whole situation is that right now, the economy is in the toilet and no matter what they seem to believe and say about indicators showing economic turn around never seem to actually cause a turnaround.

So we continue to limp along with all these broken systems, because "some day soon" it will be better. Yet when we have the chance to get a system in place that would improve our livelihood and the ability to work when work is available, the people representing us can't even get enough of their people to stop jerking off their corporate overlords to make it happen.

And while all this goes down, more and more people are forced onto the welfare system and receive BETTER medical care than they did when they paid out of pocket, because they don't have to worry about if they can afford thousands of dollars of out of pocket expenses to get things fixed that if dealt with earlier would have been simpler, cheaper, and safer procedures..with less recovery time and better long term results...and a whole hell of a lot less suffering.

Yet, we still can't see that this current system is just a losing battle, you either spend money on insurance you don't need 99% of the time and waste money on peace of mind and little else. Or you spend money on insurance which you need, but you can't actually afford to address the medical problems in a more permanent fashion. I've needed surgery on my hands for carpal tunnel for 5 years, can't afford it. Got a shoulder that is now screwed up, which may be partially due to pain radiating from my carpal tunnel or something else...it's just guess work until I can afford to eliminate causes or pay for high dollar specialists. Allergies that are under control most times, but can't afford allergy shots anymore to even out the reactions. Asthma where they won't cover the medications that work, and they discontinued the CFC versions that worked better. Bruxism issues, can't afford to get any kind of dental made appliance to deal with it, so using cheap over the counter guards......which cause my jaws to shift so now my jaws and teeth don't line up for a proper bite (they hit in the front). And now I probably need braces to fix that issue, which could have been addressed years with less expensive means more than likely. Have a cracked tooth from the bruxism that I can't afford to fix, cracked one prior to it think it ended up being about 800 dollars in the end.

It shouldn't be an issue of money when you have a medical need to have something fixed. It's in everyone's best interest to keep people able bodied, otherwise more and more people end up on disability and never come off of it.

@blankfist sorry about your teeth. When I had dental insurance, it was so shit all I could afford to have done was regular cleanings (I'm not even sure why I continued to pay for the insurance), I couldn't afford to fix any cavities. Now I don't have dental insurance and still can not afford to have 2 cavities filled. I just found out that there is a dental college in Dallas where I can go have dental work done on the cheap, So I'm going to call them after we get through Christmas.

Also, my son was born without any enamel on his teeth, he also has asthma and his medications cause tooth decay, so that poor baby's teeth were all fucked up for years. The dentist my insurance would pay for kept trying to sell me some coating for his teeth that was going to cost $1800 when it was all over and my insurance refused to pay. Needless to say, I was never able to afford it and his teeth got worse. I got laid off last year and lost my insurance so my kids now have medicaid. I took him to a new dentist, he ended up having to have oral surgery and the coating the other dentists were trying to sell me... apparently, it would not have fixed the problem but would have only made it worse. Also, the only problem I've had with medicaid in the year my kids have had it were the nightmarish bureaucratic issues.

If scientific studies tell me the radiation isn't harmful, well that's fine, but until they can also tell me why autism is on the rise, what causes cancer, why there's an epidemic of asthma, and so on, I think it's fair for me to also make my own responsible decisions even if it contradicts their science.

bugger. mis voted (wrong vid!) - it's an interesting point. but, not really selling the idea, once again this is a pitch Against a Healthcare system this is a right rather than a privalige. I have lived in UK and Sweden, bother with a central healthcare system and this problem is a non issue for me. If you want to see a doctor, you do. If you need medicine, you get it, discounted. Sure I pay through taxes, but I get it, and I don't get rejected or told my treament is "experimental"

This guy making the response, seems to think that a central system (gov. controlled or influenced in this case) is just plain bad. But the truth is, if it is done properly, the results often mean everyone gets the right healthcare. In the UK you can still get private insurance on top of the NHS (and like all insurance this does not cover asthma, and a whole bunch of other (unsupported) ailments.

But as mentioned above, you have the fire brigade and postal service as public services, as well as education. Why is healthcare seen as exempt?

Some insurance company is kicking itself over letting one future senator go uncovered during their child's birth. When they could have covered him and denied all of the non-senators and people with the power to hurt their profits.

This last year for me has been a terrible year dealing with Anthem, they decided the medications Im on for asthma are no longer "formulary".....even though the "formulary" they decided was the best option does absolutely nothing for me in the case of an attack perhaps even aggravates the condition. And then at the end of the year they jacked my rates up triple what it was the year before.

What they hold against you is so arbitrary it's impossible to know. Major surgeries? If it was back surgery not related to an underlying condition like my brother, doesn't affect rates. Have a mental breakdown? Not held against you, seek treatment...they just may decide not to pay for it. Asthma? Not supposed to be held against you, but they will question treatments related to it. Overweight? Yes, but they won't pay for any treatment related to it. Allergies? Yes, they screwed up payment for this I dunno how many times...go for months while the provider tries to get paid by the insurance company. Then you get the mega-bill 5 months down the road because Anthem sudden figures out their issues and pays 5 months worth at once.


Given how much of a change I've seen in insurance coverage in the last year, I have to wonder if the insurance companies aren't worried about the bill being passed and trying to nickel and dime as much as they can. Just like the credit companies were doing with outstanding credit debt, maxxing out rates or cutting off credit lines to people before the bill became active limiting their rates/abilities.

my house was built in 1956, its in fantastic condition and i have been slowly updating to make it more energy efficient. one thing i have yet to replace, because they are so fucking expensive and my house has so many of them, is the windows. when i had the inspection done the dude even told me not to open them because they are so old he thought the panes would crumble if handled too roughly. where i live its not uncommon for it to be 106F + in the summer and currently its 10F right now and dropping. so... we experience a bit of extremes and my energy bills are always high. (though much much lower than any apartment i ever lived in)

tell me more about this plastic. i think the plan i had originally was to slowly replace a window or two at time with solar windows. but theyre horribly expensive and i decided i dont really like how dark they look from the outside. kind of an eyesore. especially on a yellow house.

for my birthday a few years ago my stepdad came over and installed some insulation in the attic, which is great. and i bought a new AC and furnace with all kinds of extra fancy filters after i found out my asthmatic son is also allergic to everything in existence. that seems to have cut my energy bills by about a 1/4 and seriously reduced the amount of trouble he has with his asthma which has also saved me money on medicine. i dont even want to think about what kind of grossities were hanging out in a 50+ year old AC unit.

i also discovered some awesomeness last winter. i put electric blankets underneath the fitted sheet on all of our beds in the winter. turn them on about 5 minutes before we lay down and the bed is toasty warm when you get in. and most of the fall and winter you can shut the heater off at night. our blankets have timers on them, so they stay on for about 30 minutes. the bed stays warm all night and the hot air isnt blowing into the house all night making us all stuffy nosed and dry in the morning.

Wow Stellar, I'm not sure what kind of a magical land you live in where you pay $16 a month for insurance but let's say you're telling the truth:

Do you ride to work in the rain? Because nobody I know rides their bike in the rain. So what then, call in sick every time it rains? That wouldn't fly at my job.

By the way, don't you have to pay for the bike? Even assuming you're all paid off, you'd have to account for it in your budget at some point in your life. 600cc bikes aren't exactly cheap. And what about maintenance? Tires, plugs, oil, brakes, etc? I know, I know... you maintain it yourself right? Because you're so self sufficient. Well then who pays for the tools? Who pays for the replacement parts? Well, we'll have to figure that into your budget as well. (Unless of course you got them from www.wegiveawayfreetoolsandbikeparts.com)

So, now that we've figured in the cost of your bike and the maintenance, what about everything else you already own? I'm assuming that you cook your $10-a-day food supply in pots and pans? And then you eat it on plates? With silverware? Do you use oil to cook your meat and vegetables in? Well at what point in your life do you figure all of that stuff into your budget? Let's move on:

You can't work anywhere without keeping yourself clean (arguably anyway ) So you'll have to buy soap, which doesn't last forever. And shampoo. And razors; I can't think of many minimum wage jobs that let you have a beard. Then you'll need towels to dry yourself and of course all the other basic toiletries: toothbrush/paste, nail clippers, toilet paper (unless of course you use a bidet which would add to your water costs).

Now I hope you don't have any sort of health problems at all. Otherwise you're looking at pretty high costs for medication: asthma inhaler, insulin, etc. Speaking of insulin, I hope you're not a diabetic, because that's gonna throw that whole menu you listed right out the window.

OK, I have to get back to work but I just need to point out one more thing:

I checked th math you did for your yearly budget. It's correct, but you seemed to have left out one major thing in your budget: TAXES.


Let me guess, where you live there are no taxes right?

im lame. there was a healthcare town hall here last night. my town and the ones surrounding it are enormously filled with the religious right, teabagger nuttery. however, the district is so large that my congressman is a democrat.it was pretty much guaranteed to be pure greatness. another sifter and i were going to go with hilarious protest signs. but we both got too busy this weekend for him to drive up from houston for the weekend. then i lost a babysitter so i just went to spin class instead of going by myself.
i lose. it really probably wasnt a place for my kids though. but this is the sign i wanted to attach to my my 6 year who almost got aborted when she showed up in my 19 year old womb.

"my mommy almost aborted me. you yelled at her and said she couldnt. were all glad she didnt. now we just lost our health insurance and cant afford my brothers asthma medication. the waiting list for chips is taking too long. shes trying to make sure this can never happen to us again. now youre yelling and saying she cant. you cant scream people into submission, intimidate them into having babies they cant afford and then try to deny them access to food, medicine and health care they need to take care of those babies.youre an asshole."

my 4 year old was gonna wear this one:
"my mommy is 26 and has an endocrine system full of tumors. we just lost our health insurance and now her tumors are a preexisting condition. are you going to protest being taxed to pay for the foster system and government entitlements ill get when she dies?"

bwwhahahahaahahahahah. it would have been hilariously inappropriate if i wasnt such a coward. and really its not as much fun to get yelled at by yourself.

maybe i shouldve gone with simple signs attatched to my daughter like "im easily manipulated by corporate propaganda" and dressed her up like one of these disney channel sluts like miley cyrus or brittany spears or a brats doll or something.

In reply to this comment by rottenseed:
I just read this today. Please PLEASE PLEASE do this!

In reply to this comment by peggedbea:
thinker 247 and i have epic plans to crash teabagging parties... my sign will read "i refuse to pay to educate your kids, but i will enthusiastically pay to send your kids to war or prison!"

Prices are set by consumers in the absence of government interference. Thus, my opinion on whats "reasonable" is critically important. When you go to Walmart, do you purchase things that are "unreasonably" priced or "reasonably" priced? You don't think the sum opinion of everyone who shops at Walmart is important?

The reason doctors prices are through the roof are because of crooked insurance companies which lobby for government interference. Becoming a doctor is no harder than obtaining many other college degrees, in fact I would rate it as easier, so ask yourself how doctors can be charging $4,000 an hour when most college graduates earn $30-40?

>> ^gwiz665:
Who gives a shit what you think is a reasonable pay? The pay is what it is. I also think you're not looking at experience - there's more to being a doctor than education.
>> ^imstellar28:
A reasonable pay for a ER doctor, in my opinion, is say $60 an hour ($120,000 a year). The drugs to treat asthma shouldn't cost more than $10. So doing some math, I'm going to guess you son was being treated in the ER for 66 straight hours?

Who gives a shit what you think is a reasonable pay? The pay is what it is. I also think you're not looking at experience - there's more to being a doctor than education.

>> ^imstellar28:
A reasonable pay for a ER doctor, in my opinion, is say $60 an hour ($120,000 a year). The drugs to treat asthma shouldn't cost more than $10. So doing some math, I'm going to guess you son was being treated in the ER for 66 straight hours?