@vil
i was going to reference hitchhikers guide to the galaxy,because the parallels are there,except without the humor.

i have read many a sacred text,and even though the book of urantia is written in a similar format,it read more like a government procedural book than anything.i simply could not get far into the book at all.

still,as a text that lays out the workings of the universe,i felt i should add this book to the pile.

no fantastical stories of resurrection,or miracles,or interventions by a supreme being.just a break down of your basic universe's bureaucracy.

Trump said he will "repeal Obamacare and replace it with something amazing".

These people bought into that. The average sifter (myself included) did not.

However, as someone who wants to see health care improve in the US, I think that a Trump presidency is likely to lead to things getting better (long term). Even if he massively screws up. Actually, sorta especially if he massively screws up.

These people had deductibles in the multiple thousands of dollars range. With a median family income of $16k per year. According to CNN, the premium for the standard package will be $296 per month on average. So for the people in the video, they'd pay about 20-25% of their yearly income on premiums, with another 12-15% out of pocket before they hit their deductible for any needed care. Sure, some insurance is better than no insurance, but these people have been living dangerously with no insurance for a LONG time. Thirty plus percent of your yearly wages vs rolling the dice? A bunch are gonna roll the dice.

So, option A -- a miracle occurs, and Trump actually follows through and replaces Obamacare with something that actually is better. My money isn't on this one, but if he pulls it off more power to him.

Option B -- the people in the video are right, and Trump and the GOP will lose interest in actually repealing the ACA when they realize that they are going to have a hard time actually making something better. I don't think this one is likely either, because I don't think they really give a shit. But you never know. This one would represent a slow stagnation and likely eventual death for the ACA (without any intervention in 2018 or 2020) as more and more people decide to roll the dice and go back to living uninsured.

Option C -- whatever "plan" Trump and the Republican Congress come up for to "replace" the ACA with is a trainwreck. The people in the video that did benefit from the ACA get screwed, at least short term. But the thing is ... "fool me once". Some of them would be pissed, and wouldn't forget. Some would blame Trump and the GOP. Some would remember Trump's answer to Kathy in the video -- that the ACA isn't perfect, but it could be improved. But that her Senator (a Republican) isn't talking about doing that, he's talking about dumping it.

Maybe a bunch of people get fooled again, and eat up whatever excuses Trump, the GOP, and Fox News feed them. But some will remember. And it doesn't take a whole lot to shift the balance of power -- popular vote totals are often just a few percentage points apart. I think it will be extremely hard for the GOP to avoid a major shakeup in midterms and/or 2020.

Well, when you consider the House cards were stacked against him, I'm not sure what kind of pink-rabbit miracle people expected.

Damn you @eric3579, the past day and a half I've had that song "Let it snow" running non-stop through my head now!

Oh, and other Christmas movies that come to mind are (in no particular order) Scrooged, Miracle on 34th Street and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.

I've only done this once. I will never do it again. In 1994, I turned 21. During my party, a friend brought both Weed and Jack Daniels. I partook of both heavily.

For the first time ever, I was almost unable to move. I've been drunk. I've been high. Never before was I rendered nigh motionless. I would not have placed this on the "Never do again so help me" list if that was the end of the experience.

Later that night, a powerful nausea unlike any I had experienced before or since came upon me. I had barely regained my equilibrium and in the process of vainly trying to make it to the bathroom, I took out a wall in my friend's mobile home. Let me be clear, I am not in any way exaggerating when I said I took out a wall. I was a defensive lineman in school and I was still mostly the same size 3 years later.

I landed in a heap of broken plywood and 2x4's, my friend and his girlfriend awoke to the noise and noticed their bedroom had a new entry. They then were treated to projectile vomit which spewed about the room as I tried to get up and out to the bathroom. They freaked out, got up and tried to run out, forgetting that they were naked. I was able to get up finally, and stumbled back out of their room, where I blearily noticed that everyone who was still hanging about the party were gawking at us. Me, covered in puke, a glow in the dark OP T-shirt, and bleached jeans. My friend and his girl covered in puke alone.

Puke glows oddly under blacklight, let me tell you. Anyhow, we all got cleaned up, I changed clothes, and then my future wife took me home. I went back a week later, after the shame had worn off a bit, to get my clothes. My friend had moved, his rented trailer was padlocked, and I never heard from him again.

If by some miracle you are reading this, Ricky, apologies bud.

CRISPR-Cas9
Bring me a gene
Encoding for a specific protein
Make a few snips at this coded locus
You work so well inside a streptococcus
Cas9
I'm so alone
Without your scissors in my chromosome
Cut me up and do it clean
CRISPR-Cas9 bring me a gene

CRISPR-Cas9
Keep me a gene
A viral sequence you've already seen
Chopped into bits and stored as genomic
With clustered repeats
That are palindromic
Cas9
Bind with this code
Use it to target infections of old
Immunized like a vaccine
CRISPR-Cas9 keep me a gene

CRISPR-Cas9
Cut me a gene
With a precision that I've never seen
Unzip a strand and interrogate it
Seek out your sequence until you locate it
Cas9
Lock into place
And do your job as endonuclease
Chop just like a guillotine
CRISPR-Cas9 cut me a gene

Snip snap!
CRISPR-Cas9
CRISPR-Cas9

CRISPR-Cas9
Bring me a gene
By commandeering my repair routine
A strand to match your severed location
For some homologous recombination
Cas9
Cheap and precise
Rewriting genomes from microbes to mice
And soon the humble human being
CRISPR-Cas9 bring me a gene

CRISPR-Cas9
Give us a gene
Give us a miracle like that one Nazarene
‘Cause giving the lame their legs and the blind their sight is
In view for dystrophy and retinitis
But CRISPR-Cas9
What if you fall
Outside our power and inside us all
That really could incite a scene

When this terrible wonderful power unsettling
Opens the door to unethically meddle
Is ev’ry congenital malady bettered
Sufficient to warrant genetics unfettered
To modify man in the manner of Gattaca
Raise up a mammoth or make a rattata
Dramatical medical means to eradicate aging
Or cancer or make a fanatic
A mass epidemic a weapon nefarious
Single mosquito to wipe out malaria
Send in a viral infection to ferry a
Cure to the cells of an HIV carrier
Freed of disease as we're free to uncover
What nature and accident failed to discover
And free to be other than
All that we ever have been

CRISPR-Cas9
CRISPR-Cas9

Oh CRISPR-Cas9
Bring us a gene
You wondrous ribonucleoprotein
You have the power to vanquish or save us
Who would have thought that the microbe that gave us
Cas9
S. pyogenes
The source of strep and flesh-eating disease
Housed this marvellous machine
Full of uses great and obscene
CRISPR-Cas9 bring us
Please don't sting us
Cas9 bring us a gene

With adenine
And thiamine
Incite a scene
Cas9 bring us a gene!

Gawd, the world just sucks sometimes. The guy who saved the baby died in August 2016 in Aleppo.

He was a father with two kids.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/08/13/489906652/the-volunteer-who-rescued-syrias-miracle-baby-is-killed-in-aleppo

The email leak showing how the Democrats colluded to shaft Bernie is going to hand Trump the presidency unless by some miracle Clinton is dumped, which I don't see happening.

Freedom. Democracy. God bless A-murr-i-kah! What a fucking joke.

That is mostly quite interesting. Though, it's bizarre that he declares a belief in free will more hopeful than a belief in determinism. Of course determinists think that people can change, they do it all the time. When or why a particular person will change might be unknowable, the determist merely argues there was a cause.

This is vastly more hopeful than Catholicism, the central miracle of which relies on the pernicious belief in hereditary guilt.

[author flagged as a spammer - redacted]

I can only hope that she is indicted, either for her mail server or for the clear and systematic cheating that took place during the primary. If via a miracle Sanders were to be the nominee, then I would vote for him. Barring that, I'll be voting Libertarian this year as I cannot, in good conscience, place a vote for Clinton.

EDIT: According to 'separation of powers...and the roles defined for each branch, the Judicial has full power to interpret the laws as they interpret them. Period.

Exactly....but now it's been re-interpreted to give a right to a single individual...300000000 times.
Yes, you could, but that militia must be well regulated (which doesn't mean it never wets the bed or cries about it's parents being mean) before it meets the criteria to be protected...technically.

Your contention that "regulated" as a legal term actually means/meant "adjusted", as if a "well adjusted militia" was a phrase that makes any sense, or did back then, makes no sense. You may continue to claim it, I will continue to contradict it. Unless you have some written description by a founding father saying exactly that, it's just, like, your opinion...man. Try reading "Miracle at Philadelphia" for context.

If Y and Z didn't exist, but are incredibly similar to X, then it's reasonable to interpret laws to include Y and Z....if they existed and were not EXCLUDED, it's up to the judicial to interpret meaning...the less clear they are in meaning, the more power they give the judicial. Today, congress is as unclear as possible, and complain constantly that they are interpreted 'wrong'.

It's not a simple matter to make any law today....no matter how clear the need is for a law or how reasonable and universally the concept is accepted. Sadly. It SHOULD be a simple matter. It's not.

The court never "jumps the gun". They only interpret/re-interpret laws that are challenged, and a reasonable challenge means the law is in some way open to interpretation.

We'll have agree to disagree on the merits of Clinton and Trump.

As for the rest....

I haven't been "duped" by the media. The dem primary is over in all but name. Yes, it's not mathematically impossible for Bernie to win, but it's also highly improbable.

I've done the math.

Ignoring the super delegates, Clinton has 1768 vs Bernie's 1494.
There are 714 delegates still up for grabs, so Bernie would need to win 495 of them to be the popular pledged delegate candidate. That means Bernie needs to win 69% of the remaining delegates.

The vast majority(66.6% \m/) of those delegates are in the California primary where Bernie is projected to lose. Even the most optimistic poll has him losing by 2 points. If that happens it is mathematically impossible for him to win. Even if he manages a miracle and wins California by a few points, it's STILL mathematically impossible for him to win. He would have to win at least 53% of the vote in California to even stand a chance.

Finally, you're preaching to the converted. AFAIC, Bernie is so blatantly the obvious choice, I really can't understand why anyone wouldn't vote for him. Well, I can, it's because "boo! SOCIALISM!!! Oh teh noes!", but I find it depressing to accept. I've said before that in a sane political system, you would have a choice between a centre right candidate (Hillary) and Bernie.

And yes, Bernie beats Trump more than Clinton, but the democrats don't seem to have gotten that message.

I'm still hoping for a miracle. It's all i got left.

Mario and Son Goku: FUSION!!!!!!!!!!!! History and its micro miracles.

And don't forget the robots... which will one day take over the world -- and only brave, hypersexualized Japanese high school students in giant mech suits can defeat them!

Or be raped by demons and/or tentacles and/or demons with tentacles. Japanese game shows and poooooorn. THE END.