The travelling salesman trope, and it's implications, are as old as the hills. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TravelingSalesman

In that case shouldn't the narrative have been shown from the point of view of the village occupants? The closest we saw to them suffering any consequences of their actions was a distant puff of purple smoke as the Smoke Seller laughed.

If let the buyer beware was the point, then show me the buyers suffering the consequences. A massive guard dog turning into a mangy ankle-biter while defending his owner from a burgler, the boy's airplane / rocket turning back into a pointy stick and catching him in the eye, show me the old ladies at a fancy party being laughed at when their fancy bags and clothes turn back into tat, or the major becoming a laughing stock when, as he goes to unveil it to invited dignitaries, his massive monument tuns back into a walking cane (without even a jewel adorning it anymore).

I've watched a bit of the documentary that this clip is taken from and the dude seems down to earth. I can't say I would have a different reaction than the "old" lady though. I know the name....but as I am not a fan of his work...I would not recognize him in person.

Pretty cool but I hate Infowars, there's soo many morons that like them.

Honestly just go to infowars.com and click around. It's full of scary bullshit and spurious claims. It's a joke.

All credit goes to the officer though, we need to make being a Police Officer something great. The regulation should be tougher and the pay at least double what it is. Being a cop should be honorable like being a Soldier is, you're protecting and helping the society as a whole. Heck I think it would be awesome if at 22 or something, everyone had to be a cop for at least a year with an option for more. Money could go towards your education if you want, but it would be really awesome if everyone participated in their society. Making sure kids get to school safely, helping people around town find things. Heck even just simple stuff like walking old ladies across the street, it would be my utopia of niceness!

"I killed an old lady"?

>> ^ant:

>> ^FlowersInHisHair:
I love the old lady who wants to go to the cinema! She's my new FAVOURITE PERSON IN THE WORLD EVER. This week.

You would go with her and have sex?


No because I are teh gayz0r. But nearly.

@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.

Easy only if you have the money and all the documents needed on hand. If you don't it is expensive and time consuming, especially if you don't have the documentation like a birth certificate and social security card on hand. It is a poll tax, a violation of the 24th Amendment. Also, the Republicans have admitted that it was just to hand the election to Romney, at least the guy in PA did. In Ohio here, they tried to stop extended early voting hours from happening at times the working poor would be able to make it, oddly enough only in Democratic counties, while Republican ones were allowed to extend hours (he eventually then said the restrictions would apply state wide after a national scandal. then when the federal courts said he would have to allow extended hours across the state he refused to comply for a few days).

Voter fraud at the polls pretty much never happens, so we are forcing the working poor to expend a lot of time and money ($30 or so may not seem much to some, but to a person working retail, fast food or something that is a lot of money) to stop something that mathematically has a lower chance of happening than one of them being hit by lightning.

What about people like the old lady here who can't get the birth certificate to get her photo id, do we just disenfranchise her?

Then there is the timing of all these just before a Presidential election. They didn't try this in an off year so that it would have time to make it to the US Supreme Court and have it heard out. They are doing now because if it gets overturned, the damage can already done and their guy might be in office.

Want to pass voter ID laws? Fine, then make photo ID (even if it is only good for elections) free to get, and the documentation needed to get it free to get. Nobody would object then as there would be no fees... so long as they didn't time it again just months before a Presidential election.

>> ^maestro156:

It is trivial to obtain a photo ID in the US. Any objection to the law on difficulty is just being silly.

Agreed. That lady did look pretty randy.>> ^BoneRemake:

Your damn rights that guy got his brains fucked out that night.

What a badass, beating on some old ladies car.

>> ^nach0s:

The end part (conversation with an old woman) played during/after the credits on S2/E5 of his show Louie. It was awesome--she played an absent-minded relative who he took his daughters to visit. She kept casually saying really racist things and was generally daft and awkward. It was great to see the actress's real personality in the credits. Props to Louie for including it.


She was the most interesting old lady I really liked that Louie included that because I could've listened to her all day. Sometimes the best part of a Louie episode to me is watching that last bit after I've watched the episode, Louie is really doing everything right with his show, and I'm so grateful we have it and will continue to have it.

>> ^Kofi:

Hey!! My grammar is sweet old lady.
Leave her alone.


Funny. I read it like that -- "Your grandma sucks #33". LOL!

Many more in his playlist: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLA6687CF25DE17420

Hey!! My grammar is sweet old lady.
Leave her alone.

Kept waiting for another old lady to run up to his still running car and drive off with it.

We've covered this before but people who merge at the beginning of a long merge lane instead of the end.

And while I'm on driving peeves, people who stop car lengths short of the stop line, particularly at intersections where the light ain't turning green until you pull up to the stop line. Are you listening old ladies, I'm talking to you!