as usual, you're not just wrong, you're either stupid, or lying or all of the above. a very quick glance at your comment history shows you not being shy about "name calling" from your very first few posts here on the sift.

your imaginary high horse is as bloated as our military budget.

keep digging yourself a hole though. It's always fun to watch you crash and burn over and over again.

There probably isn't much down there I could accidentally bruise (or break) unlike the face.

Then again, I'd be way too shy to do that to a random woman, as they claim this to be.

I'd have no real issue putting a guy in the hospital, but I'm kind of a "wimp" when it comes to women.

Lived in Ontario (28 years), Brisbane, Australia (5 years), Alberta (7 years), and now Texas (14 years).

Agree with pretty much with Boneremake on Alberta, gets more points than Ontario. My Australian experience was good, in both the city and rural (blew an eardrum due to infection in Longreach QLD at Xmas... the doctor was drunk when they wheeled him into emerg, but he was a gentle, caring drunk).

Small things in Ontario are manageable - anything requiring stuff beyond typical emergency room patching up in more rural locations (my definition - anywhere far enough from Toronto that you can't see the nighttime glow, so north of Newfenmarket sort of) is quite lacking (v. long wait times for things like weekly dialysis, MRI, even open MRI, GI tract scoping, ultrasounds, contrast X-rays etc). Parental unit #1 with diabetes requiring 3 times a week dialysis almost snuffed it as there were only 4 chairs in the unit 14 miles from home, got on the list and had to wait for someone to die before getting on the team. Finally snuffed it when they shut down these 4 chairs and the new unit was now a 90 mile round trip 3 times a week for man who could barely walk or see. Died from exhaustion, not diabetes. 2nd parental unit needs an MRI for some serious GI issues, can't keep food down, losing weight rapidly. Wait 4.5 months and we'll see if we can get you in. I'm having her measured for the box.

Having said that, the situation is easier to describe in Texas, the land of excess (excessive wealth and excessive poverty).

Good health insurance plan, preferably through employer with lots of employees = wait times for advanced procedures measured usually in minutes or hours, sometimes days, but not weeks or months. You get taken care of, and your birthing room at the local maternity ward looks like the Marriott (just Couryard though, so no mini-bar or microwave).

Mediocre or no health insurance plan = pray you never get sick enough to require more than what you can buy at the CVS or splint up by watching do-it-yourself first aid videos on youtube, because an unplanned night in the hospital or a trip to emerg in the short bus with swirly lights followed by admission can, for many, wipe them out or sure eat up Bobby's college fund. No exaggeration. I have insurance, but for a reference point, one night in hospital (elective) for a turbinectomy (google it people) including jello and ice cream came in at $14,635. Yes, one night. 24 hours. Do the math. An emergency room visit for a forearm cut requiring 13 stitches (and I didn't even bleed on their white sheets - just cut through the skin to the fat tissue) was billed at $2,300 bucks. Our new baby tried to exit the meatbag as a footling breach, so emergency C-sectioned him out, and one extra night in hospital (2 in total) - all up, billed at just shy of $24K. We now have 3 full service hospitals within 5 miles of our house, and a full service children's hospital in the same radius. And they just started building another. Somebody's making money. If you don't have insurance, or your insurance is shitty (huge deductibles, huge copays) you will eat much of these types of costs. Rule: cheaper to die than get sick.

Ontario and AB might have longer wait times, but even an 83 year old woman in a rural Ontario village with no pension, insurance, income or large stacks of cash can (eventually) get the health care she needs without spending unjustifiable amounts of money. Happy birthday mom.

My 2¢

I booked young Luka a few years back for a classical gig with a pianist ... a tall but shy, young man with a very boyish look came accompanied with both his parents, who also attended his concert. he was 22 at the time and after the first score I could clearly see he's a bloody genius on cello. *quality

say what you will about Obama, I love how he doesn't shy away from hecklers or he even lets them have their say.

so lets see if we can keep in the spirit of calling out hecklers. which sift troll will be the first to parrot some fox news talking point to try and change the subject? Lantern? Bobknight? Surely QM has something to say about his ears. Or will choggie dismiss it all with how the parties are all the same in his usual style of sound and fury, signifying nothing?

all in today's episode of...NAME THAT HECKLER!

That's all wrong. Wikipedia is wrong, and you are wrong. The word atheism has been abused and warped to shy away from what the word of it actually means.

A-theism - not theism.

It's not plus(theism)/minus(atheism). It's plus/zero. Atheism is the neutral; theism is active belief.

Imagine a word like anti-theism would be the opposite of the spectrum; and yet a-antitheism would also be the neutral = a-antitheism == atheism.

Perpetuating a lie doesn't make it true.

Technicalities matter; semantics matter.

it's not fake she's not shy because she is a porn star and mostly porn stars do not wear bras and her harness wasn't put on

The December update highlighted an issue that has been driving me insane for years now, an issue that makes me want to punch my fellow citizens right in the kisser for not looking beyond the facade.

His illustration of the price you pay for a t-shirt can be applied, without alteration, to our energy sector in Germany. The old, centralised infrastructure, primarily coal/gas/nuclear power plants, were subsidized heavily over the years, both directly through interest-free public loans and the privatisation of the energy grid as well as through indirect means, such as tax/insurance exemptions, R&D financing. Hell, the clean-up at Sellafield in the UK alone is expected to cost just shy of £100B. All this outsourcing of costs made it possible to keep the price of energy comparably cheap.

Meanwhile, all the subsidies for renewable energy are added on top of the energy price for consumers. No smoke screens, no outsourcing, no legacy costs. You get the price tag on your energy bill. A decent level of transparency, at last. But now people get pissed at the high prices of energy and demand a stop to the renewable energy program, which ironically pushed prices to a record low on the energy exchange. On-shore wind and solar are now cheaper than heavily subsidized coal and gas. My home town in the middle of nowhere generates wind power at 0.08€ per kwh, all year long, with minimal operating costs. Even solar works splendidly, despite the abysmal central European weather.

I think I might just try his Walmart explanation on some people, it's much easier to understand.

So cheers again for pointing out this wonderful series of lectures.

I've worked with disabled children and i know exactly how you feel. It takes a lot of effort and the main thing is to know them as a person. Us non-disabled beings, we have a complex set of rules and customs, we can pick up personal traits in seconds, sometimes milliseconds and a lot of it involved body language, subtle little nuances in the speech patterns. Interacting disabled, that layer is affected. In the end, when you have established a connection, when you know what they think, how they, needs, wants, dreams etc. the interaction is exactly like it is with anyone else.

Even after working with this children successfully and actually loving them to bits (my departure from that field was heart breaking, i still get tears in my eyes) it's still a hurdle each time i meet a new person who has disabilities. But don't worry, they have this interaction as a default, it's the same with everyone they meet. Disabled have gotten used to it and know that if you hangs out long enough to know them as a person, it's worth the effort. Some act that they don't have that hurdle at all when they feel it, overact and try to show empathy which is even worse as it turn into patronizing very fast. Just be natural, if you're shy, you're shy. If you're reserved, you are reserved. One trait was very common with all kids i had the chance of knowing: they see your emotional state like you see colors so don't try to act or pretend. Just be yourself.

@CaptainPlanet
thats not a fair assertion.

@Yogi is opinionated and passionate,as am i.
so if i took your comment at face value,i would have to include myself.

and i dont think i am unreasonable.
i can be passionately opinionated.
my comments can be aggressive,confrontational and bombastic but i tend to not direct them at specific people..unless they direct a personal attack on me.

i have had many discussions with yogi and all of them have been reasonable.
i find him/her to be extremely intelligent,witty and funny.

do i agree with yogi all the time?
oh hell no but if you are going to argue or debate with yogi you better bring your A-game or he/she will make you pay for not doing your homework.

and isnt that how it should be?
i will never understand or subscribe to the notion that somehow if we dont challenge a persons assertions,arguments or opinions that somehow we are disrespecting that person..personally.

i mean,think about it.
if i put forth an opinion or argument that is using flawed or incomplete information,why would you allow that opinion to stand?
to not hurt my feelings?
would you let me walk through the food court with my wanker hanging out?
or let me flirt with a girl with a huge booger hanging out?

i may get embarrassed.
may feel a tad foolish..but in the end i am better for it.way better.

to shy away from causing someone embarrassment has more dire consequences than calling them out and exposing the flaw in their argument.

you do that person a disservice and it reduces the conversation to vapid platitudes.nobody wins..everybody loses.

and really.yogi is a blast to argue with.
just sayin....
/derailed

No kidding! Spread legged, no clothing, and in a room of young boys in their underwear.

This is just shy of a David Lynch film!

Wait, you're telling me the kiss shy guy won? Probably fixed.

COSTUME.....This Costume is "what they were"(YOU did that, zebishop ) in church in Poland-It is my CUSTOM to shy away from grammar correction and to down vote Harlem shake offerings according to rottenseed's mandate....

While Maher often does say things I agree with, he is in general a bit of a douche nozzle and very prone to I'll informed sweeping judgements that make him look rather silly (^ like this).

As far as what Mr. Greenwald said my response would be in so many words: "K'IN AYE DUDE!!" though if anything he doesn't go far enough.

The hegemony is subject to no boundaries, even those nations which actively reject it's institutions (Global market) are still bound and defined by it's existence so long as they share the same small patch of universe.

Wars exist to make money, in this day and age more than perhaps ever before. Every G.I. wounded, every round spent, every wound sutured, every school bombed.....someone in the club makes a profit..................

No matter how just & worthy your cause or evil your enemy, so long as one of these fuckers is bankrolling it, or their companies supplying it, you will loose in the long run. Every. Single. Time.

Unless your war is against the market and excessive privilege/wealth itself, your just screwing the rest of us over. I have big problems with Suni and Shi'ite Islam (the Sufi's seem ok) but blowing them up is very unlikely to improve the situation for anyone, doubly so at the end of a Lockheed-Martin missile!

Bah, don't be shy. We don't bite. Wait, I do bite as an ant.