So glad to hear this. Cheers ole cum! I just recently missed a show where they preformed along with 3 other but kinda similar bands for $7 in Norfolk VA. The promoter seen that on the book of faces that said that I probably could not make it. He offered to foot the bill for the person who would travel with me to see them. I still had no takers. Mind you that when I seen them a few years ago, The same promoter was at this dive bar in Virginia Beach VA. When we walked into the place he asked us who we were there to see and my friend said "My friend wants me to see Ceremony." The dude said that they were about to hit the stage(late but perfect timing.) He then ask us where we were for and my friend said "Baltimore MD." It was a 5 hour trip man(I really love this band). The dude said "Whoa! You deserve a beer!" and bought us a pitcher of suds. This is a really cool click of musicians in the Mid Atlantic states. You need to clone yourself so I can take you to super cheap but fucking awesome shows.

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Yeah. I heard that part.

He makes it seem as if there is something that the medical community could have done to relieve his pain and that the VA docs purposely and sadistically withheld it. I think it was a lack of communication between him and his doctors which is failure enough, but there is probably nothing that could be done to make him pain free. I mean, putting him on strong pain meds will only make him constipated. Chronically, his pain tolerance will reset and he will require higher and higher dosages to obtain relief to the point that it is unsafe to increase the dose because of respiratory depression. I'm not saying his pain isn't real; I'm saying there were no good solutions to solving his problem.

TOMAS YOUNG: "In July of last year, I began to experience sharp pains in my abdomen. And I went to the VA, and they treated me like I was a second-class citizen, a junkie looking for pain medicines just to get high, even though I was genuinely in pain."

How is this "poor support on the part of the VA"? Yes, clearly his pain was not being adequately addressed, but he got an extreme surgery at a private hospital without relief of his symptoms. In my opinion, the VA doctors did the right thing by not operating without knowing that it would improve his pain. Now he is in pain without bowel function, worse off than he was before. I don't know the details of his injuries, but some spinal cord injury and traumatic brain injury patients have neurogenic pain that is unrelieved by any intervention let alone surgery.

Anyone who has ever spoken with any veteran who has needed to avail themselves of the VA's care tells their own frustrating tales-The serious and particular nature of this guy's injuries physical, mental, spiritual...If this guy had access to Mayo, Bethesda, or John's Hopkins levels of care and expertise he may now have a different outlook perhaps....Funny??-How all the fuckers who invent the wars go straight to one of the hospitals mentioned above to get polyps removed from their asses found during a routine check-up and the soldiers get the V.A.'s network of Ghetto General Hospitals to choose from??

I had such a difficult time watching this. Clearly, this is a case where euthanasia should be possible if it were legal for him to do so. It also highlights poor support on part of the VA and substandard/abusive state of medical practices in this country. And I am not turning a blind eye to the greed and the fact that the War, like many, was a farce. Too depressing.

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Yesterday I'd have pegged it as 303 Obama, 235 Romney (the map being the same as 2008, but Romney picks up IN, FL, and NC).

Based on the returns I'm seeing as of 10:15pm, I'd say 319 Obama, Romney 219, with the map being 2008, but Romney gets IN, NC, and VA...and Obama holds Florida.

Right now I'm ready to make $10,000 bets Obama will win. Romney would need to run the table to just squeak a win at this point.

@bareboards2

I'm also glad that we can discuss these issues like reasonable people. I apologize if I've come off as unreasonable in the past. The truth is that I'm always willing to talk things out.

I've heard the rhetoric about death panels from both sides; I just haven't put in the effort to separate fact from fiction. Now that I've looked into it, this is what I've found. What you're describing (end of life consultations) is not the same thing as what are now being called death panels in Obamacare. Yes, it is true that the provision you are speaking about was demonized by republicans and ultimately removed from Medicare. I'm actually not sure how I feel about it, because it is a form of assisted suicide, and it could be abused. Some seniors may feel pressured into forgoing care, just as you hear of some people receiving substandard care because they are organ donors.

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/dad-rescues-brain-dead-son-from-doctors-wishing-to-harvest-his-organs-boy-r

In any case, the conversation has evolved, and we are no longer talking about these end of life consultations when we are talking about death panels. The death panel in Obamacare is an unelected board of 15 "health care experts" (the Independent Payment Advisory Board, or IPAB) who will make critical decisions on what services within Medicare are financially viable, and which aren't. Here is a quote from President Obama in the first debate acknowledging this:

"It — when Gov. Romney talks about this board, for example, unelected board that we’ve created, what this is, is a group of health care experts, doctors, et cetera, to figure out, how can we reduce the cost of care in the system overall?” Obama said.

“Now, so what this board does is basically identifies best practices and says, let’s use the purchasing power of Medicare and Medicaid to help to institutionalize all these good things that we do,” Obama added.

This is also acknowledged by a senior adviser to Obama:

"WE need death panels. Well, maybe not death panels, exactly, but unless we start allocating health care resources more prudently — rationing, by its proper name — the exploding cost of Medicare will swamp the federal budget."

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/17/opinion/health-care-reform-beyond-obamacare.html?_r=2

So call it death panels, or rationing, the principle is still the same. The recommendations this board makes will become law unless it is overridden by a 2/3's majority vote in congress. Here is a good example of how this type of legislative oversight is making health care "better" (penalizing hospitals for readmitting patients within 30 days):

"Beginning Monday, the hospitals will receive lower reimbursements on Medicare claims filed with the government for each admitted patient. Over the year, the total amount of those reductions will vary from $1.2 million for MedStar Washington Hospital Center in Northwest Washington, the region’s largest private hospital, to about $12,000 for Reston Hospital Center in Virginia. Of 16 hospitals in the District and Northern Virginia, all but three will get paid less."

"Some of the hardest-hit facilities are inner-city hospitals that tend to treat sicker, poorer patients. These patients sometimes end up being readmitted because they have a harder time getting medication and follow-up doctors’ appointments, often because they lack transportation, hospital officials said.

“Not only do we have the very sick patients, they also have very significant social needs,” said Kamaljit Sethi, who heads quality and safety at Providence Hospital in Northeast, where officials estimate they will lose about $320,000 in the coming year."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/hospitals-in-dc-va-to-lose-millions-from-medicare/2012/09/30/2fe0f96c-08ca-11e2-afff-d6c7f20a83b
f_story.html

What this means is that patients with the greatest needs will lose the most services, because the hospitals will no longer be able to serve them because of this penalty. This outcome could turn out to be deadly for thousands of people, ultimately, all in the name of efficiency. This is a perfect illustration as to why Government should have as little power over your health care as possible. Here is testimony from the front lines:

" Today while working my shift in the emergency room, an old lady was brought in very sick and in fact near death. I did my usual workup and evaluation and attempted to administer life saving treatment. It was my plan to admit this woman to the hospital. I found out a little later that this same woman had been a patient here just slightly more than 2 weeks ago with a DIFFERENT DIAGNOSIS. I was told that if this woman was admitted, the hospital would not be paid.

The new Medicare rule now is that if the same Medicare patient is re-admitted to the hospital within 30 days, the hospital will not be paid. When they first started this nonsense they said this only applied to patients with the same diagnosis. Now they have "expanded" the rule to include re-admissions for any reason. So if you're in the hospital for pneumonia, and 3 weeks later, you break your leg.......too bad. Medicare will not pay the hospital to fix your leg."

http://grouchatrighttruth.blogspot.com/2012/10/death-panels-are-here.html

This is completely outrageous, I think you will be forced to agree. Personally, I think we need to have a national conversation about this issue, and both sides need to come together to hammer out this issue. Obamacare is clearly not ready for primetime, and as it stands it is going to hurt people.

As far as your other comments, I'm not limiting myself to any particular news source. I am a political independent and I will share with you that I won't be voting for either candidate this year. I will still participate in the local elections but I cannot vote for either candidate in good conscience. While I am socially and fiscally conservative on many issues, I am liberal on others, such as helping the poor, the environment (within reason), and immigration. I don't fit into a polical cookie cutter and I don't automatically support a candidate because they give God lip service.

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If we let the people out of prison, who will operate the factories they are attached to? Where will we get our cheap paint and crappy fiberboard office furniture?

(In the United States)the federal prison industry produces 100% of all military helmets, ammunition belts, bullet-proof vests, ID tags, shirts, pants, tents, bags, and canteens. Along with war supplies, prison workers supply 98% of the entire market for equipment assembly services; 93% of paints and paintbrushes; 92% of stove assembly; 46% of body armor; 36% of home appliances; 30% of headphones/microphones/speakers; and 21% of office furniture. Airplane parts, medical supplies, and much more: prisoners are even raising seeing-eye dogs for blind people. (...)

Profits are so good that now there is a new business: importing inmates with long sentences, meaning the worst criminals. When a federal judge ruled that overcrowding in Texas prisons was cruel and unusual punishment, the CCA signed contracts with sheriffs in poor counties to build and run new jails and share the profits. According to a December 1998 Atlantic Monthly magazine article, this program was backed by investors from Merrill-Lynch, Shearson-Lehman, American Express and Allstate, and the operation was scattered all over rural Texas. That state's governor, Ann Richards, followed the example of Mario Cuomo in New York and built so many state prisons that the market became flooded, cutting into private prison profits.

After a law signed by Clinton in 1996 - ending court supervision and decisions - caused overcrowding and violent, unsafe conditions in federal prisons, private prison corporations in Texas began to contact other states whose prisons were overcrowded, offering "rent-a-cell" services in the CCA prisons located in small towns in Texas. The commission for a rent-a-cell salesman is $2.50 to $5.50 per day per bed. The county gets $1.50 for each prisoner.

Source=/globalreasearch.ca/Vicky Pelaez/2008