BJean

Nope not subtle at all. Very straight forward thank you very much. Rush = dangerous. Obama = president. Remember you had the reins for 8 frickin years and look what your people gave us. Look what they did to this country! Hell, just think about how many lives have been lost. Think about how many incredibly wealthy folks became thousands more incredibly wealthier folks - on the broken backs of hard working Americans. You need to stand back and give other people a chance. If it goes into the can, you can say I told you so. But right now is just too early to say I told you so. Because you don't have a clue what's going to happen. I absolutely do not understand why people seem to think that if any of us agree with any of the Democrats plans or the president's suggestions, we think of him as the "savior". That is incredibly infantile. There are millions of Americans who need and want change and are willing to do whatever it takes. Obama just happened to be at the right place at the right time.

Americans suffer from confusion from all the lousy politicians and media pontificating politicoes. I wish the media reported the news. That's just not the case anymore. That's not what people want and that's not what sells papers or air time. And when you have someone like Rupert Murdoch running one of the networks, it isn't hard to understand. Things used to be at least a little disguised as news. Not anymore. Everything is real in-your-face biased politics. So health care reform is a turd, eh? What's your alternative to fixing the problems we have with this system? Oh yeah, you think that the insurance companies can sort it out. Ahem. What are you going to do, join the rabble rousing folks who are taking it to the streets? That's exactly what I wanted to do when Bush took us into Iraq. But he was our president and we let it play out. Now President Obama is our president and he needs to have the opportunity to lead us the way Americans voted to have him lead us. Protesting isn't a bad thing if it is genuine. But right now these people aren't protesting, they're inciting to riot. How's this going to play out? Americans battling it in the streets like they do in other countries? God forbid.

There is plenty of reason for us all to want this to slow down. What usually happens when they get a rush on things is a decent law doesn't get passed. Some butchered version of it will pass and it will have lots of crippy crap garbage attached. It will wind up not helping us in the way that we hope. If past history is any indication. On the other hand, if they don't get it passed pretty quickly, the thing dies and the resurrection is difficult if not impossible. Again, nothing good happens as a result. If the Democrats don't wise up and play the game that the Republicans have for many years, they're going to lose the game again. You have to fight dirty when you're in a pig sty if you want to win, otherwise you just let the pigs sling all their dirt on you and half the time it sticks. Beth, your references to my ass and my hair are SO beneath you. Oh wait a minute, no they aren't. They're just like you. Gross!! You make some understandable arguments and then you say stuff like that and I can't stand to debate with you. You have some nerve talking about my leftist views. You're the most blinded person on this thread. Blinded by the Republican half truths, dishonesty and double dealing. You eat it up. Well, I am very sorry I tried to banter with you. You just become so revolting I don't want to have anything to do with you.

Did you fall out of a tree or something? I'm glad I have to go get my hair did because I don't think it would be in anybody's best interests for me to get into a tiff with you right now about this stuff. You're obviously all freaked out and irrational right now. Hang on girl. If you keep listening to the extremists, you've got a lot of pain in store for you.

Gawd Beth, you crack me up!

Some less mentally endowed folks think that paying taxes is socialism. They like the ring of that word. Some people think that any kind of government oversight or involvement in our health care industry is socialized medicine. Big corporations have been calling every program that Congress or a president can come up with that might improve people's health care plight in this country, socialized medicine. It scares hell out of people. The fat cats have you snockered. Keep repeating their mantra. It's worked well for them for decades. If we don't get things right and you're gleeful about it, you get what you deserve.

plain: "...I could easily say that the government is the bane of our existance (what caused more damage to America's health - The government's response to hurricane Katrina, or State Farm's profit margin? The government's use of asbestos as insulation, or Allstate's bottom line? Of course, I know this is a ridiculous example...I just wanted to illustrate that pointing the finger of blame at a very easy target is a populist, simplistic tactic)." Maybe a ridiculous example, but my answer is: the medical insurers have harmed the health care industry far more than Hurricane Katrina or asbestos. Your putting car insurers in your example was purely accidental, eh? Or were you just trying to be ironic or funny? plain: "Strongly strongly disagree that our healthcare isn't the best in the world." We are around number 34th in the world. We have a higher infant mortality rate than other industrialized nations. Many of those nations have a longer life expectancy rate. And there are other indicators that we do not have the best health care system in the world. Where do you get your statistics on our having the best in the world? Maybe you should look at some current numbers. What we used to have is not what we actually have today. Plain: "Remember (as I've said time and time again), the power you give President Obama today is power you're giving another president (possibly a republican. Possibly Sara Palin. Think about that for a minute) tomorrow." So you're saying that the power we gave George W. Bush is the power we're giving President Obama today? Well, I can sleep better at night with that kind of power being in the hands of someone with an intelligent mind instead of George W. Bush. Even if he did impress you because he was the "decider."

If you have trouble taking pills, you should seriously consider crushing them first. My doctor came out last year with a big notice that LB patients should never take pills. There have been some incidents of people aspirating them into their lungs and dying. I don't have trouble taking the two pills I have to take on a regular basis - they're small. But I only take chewable vitamins. He tells all of his patients to take Centrum chewables. You might ask your doctor about this business of crushing your pills.

I guess I figure if the world has Rush Limbaugh and that ass on Fox who cries and whines, we need a counter balance. Maddow and Olbermann seem to fill that bill. Thanks for the info on Dominick.

This turned into an hilarious thread! Nice try kartman. For some reason nobody wants to really discuss 'birthers" or those crazy nuts who think they are the "chosen" and live in a house in Washington and try to run the country. And I didn't hear about it on Maddow or Olbermann's shows. There is a book out and I saw the guy interviewed and of course it was brought up when people started noticing that some of the guys who are such vocal family and church advocates, in one case a governor and the other two in Congress, have been caught in torrid affairs. And while I agree that Maddow and Olbermann are obviously left leaning (in Olbermann's case, very left) they do not in any way compare to the present day Rush Limbaugh. Rush used to be like his left-leaning counterparts, but these days he doesn't make outlandish suggestions, he outright manipulates the truth and lies. If all Americans who listen to him took him to be an "entertainer" as someone suggested, I wouldn't have a problem with him. But he states things as fact (that are not true) and lots of people believe him. I believe he is quite dangerous. Far from funny!

This is the first I've heard of it. I can't eat fresh or canned pineapple so it is not something I would have ever thought of. I had an incident at lunch and my chest still hurts so I'm gonna get me some pineapple and or paypaya juice and see if it helps. Thanks!

You get full because your pouch is so small from the restriction that the fill caused. The problem with not eating is that you can lose your health if you do it too long. If you don't get protein, your hair can start falling out, your heart muscle can be weakened, etc. Plus if your system is as efficient at storing fat as mine is, your body thinks you are starving and so it will hang onto everything it gets. You'll lose weight, but then when you start eating anything to speak of, you will gain and be extremely frustrated. A bite the size of a penny is not actually all that small. I have to take a bite about half that size sometimes when my band is really tight. It seems ridiculous but it's the only way I can manage to get food down. Chicken is impossible and lots of other high protein things are too, so you have to be really diligent in finding enough protein to keep you healthy. I usually rely on protein drinks made with skim milk and have to drink them very slowly. You always have to take your chewable Centrum vitamins and I take biotin (very small pills) for my hair. I am glad that you're getting some restriction removed. You can get the job done without wrecking your health. Good luck!

tcampbell, you're too tight. Just a tiny bit removed might do the trick. You should not have trouble drinking water although most of us have trouble gulping water like we used to. Chicken is almost always difficult if you have much restriction unless it is dark meat and falling off the bone. When they tell you to eat teeny bites, they don't mean a really small regular bite, they mean teeny tiny and to keep it in your mouth before swallowing until you think there's aboslutely nothing left. But the real indicator is that you can't drink water and you have a constant pain going on. It can be counter-productive if you are over-filled, just as much as if you are under-filled. You have to stay with it until you get just the right amount. Enough to keep you from eating too much, but you need to be able to eat some solid food and keep it down!

I agree with your assessment about polls and specific answers. It does all have to do with the way they can manipulate responses by the structure of their questions. You have really read a lot into my statement about "profit-at-the-cost-of-our health-care" now haven't you... Please tell me just exactly how you think our health care mess has come into being. I hope you will agree with me that we do not have the best health care in the world and certainly not the best that we could have. How do you think it got that way? My doctor has explained it to me on several occasions from a doctor's perspective. He is tops in his field and has written and published books and insructs other doctors on various laprascopic techniques. (My GP says my surgeon thinks he's God.) I have a sneaking suspicion that he knows a lot more about it than I do - from a doctor's perspective - and probably at least as much as you do. Although I give you that you're one smart cookie. And I shouldn't have used the term "pharmacies" because I meant pharmaceutical companies. Although I do know that pharmacies get their piece of the pie and are reaping the benefits of the system we have now: doctors keeping us in all manner of medications because it is the most profitable way for them to attend to our health these days. Insurance companies are definitely the bane of our existence here in the U.S. We shouldn't blame them because we definitely allowed it to happen. But its' their greed and their lobbyists that have put us in this position. I think I explained it on an earlier post and won't go through that again. But I will say that the insurance industry has an unbelievable amount of power over this country via their mega-huge number of lobbyists and the money that they devote to keeping the bills in Congress favorable to their industry. There are other reasons why the insurance industry has influenced our inferior medical care, but as I said, I've explained much of this earlier. That's what you get for not reading and absorbing my brilliant posts. :crying:

Looks like it's been nearly scrutinized to death. With it so watered down, it's probably going to wind up another drop in the bucket of bad health care policies and won't actually solve anything. I'm all for public scrutiny! But there's so much misinformation and downright lies being set adrift in this ocean of media bullcrap, the public is obviously having a very hard time sorting it all out. But no, that doesn't mean we should pass just any turd that happens to float to the top.

Amen, kat!! Except this feels more like the kid beating the parents over the head trying to correct them. :laugh:

Ooooh good. I am not the last one who posted about religion on the prostitution thread. Do I hear crickets? The old LB group used to talk about cheese when they decided a topic was beaten to death.

Government controlled medical reform? Who exactly do you think is going to reform our health care system? We left everything up to the insurance companies to figure it all out and look where that got us. The government MUST get involved now. We really have no choice. That doesn't mean that we are going to get "socialized medicine". That's just a term that is bantied about to scare you. The people who stand to lose if there is change use it a lot and lots of Americans have been scared to death of the idea of any government invovlement in our medical care system. They always think that government involvement means "socialized medicine" and we have many years of negativism to overcome because of that. Well too bad. We are in a situation where something must be done. If everybody hadn't just kept paying more and more and getting less and less, maybe we could have gotten a handle on it before it got to this point, but we didn't and now we are.

kartman as usual, you've made some extremely relevant points. To tell you the truth, the public health issues are far more important to me than the potential for tax revenue when we discuss government controls over prostitution. The health department governs the way we are allowed to run restaurants because they can be a health hazzard. Why do we stick our heads in the sand about the health issues prostitution causes in our society? The religious aspect is daunting. It reminds me in a way of the religious right's total aversion to quality, all-encompassing sex education. They believe in abstinence only as a means of birth control and of dealing with teen sex and pregnancy. It does not work and yet they cling to that idea. Their own children pay the price and their aversion to allowing their children to be exposed to sex ed and the distribution of condoms in schools honestly boggles the mind.

Like I've said many times before: prostitution is not the same thing as women having sex with their spouse, a secretary having sex with her boss or sex within any other interpersonal relationship. Prostitution is not based on the dynamics or politics between two people sharing an interpersonal relationship of any kind. It is a profession in and of itself. It is a person with a certain skill set who is providing sexual acts for another person purely for profit with no personal strings attached. It makes sense for the government to be involved in that business the same as it is in every other business. And by so doing, the government wouldn't be endorsing the prostitution business any more than it endorses the ice cream business. It is important to understand that sex between two people who have common interests beyond the sexual activity itself, is something quite different. Although there is no doubt that some women and men do use sex to barter for something they want from someone they know, it doesn't make them prostitutes. It could make them sneaky and unattractive, or it could make them quite attractive to their partner because, let's face it, some relationships thrive on that kind of barter system. However, the government really can't control sex between people who share a personal relationship. The government could not and should not enforce legal requirements to guarantee either party's safety, and the government certainly shouldn't try to tax sexual activities between two people who have an interpersonal relationship. But the government can do those things with the business of prostitution. And it should.

patty: "What I said was that it's too bad you don't allow Him to talk back to you. For the only way to hear from God is through his words in the bible." Uh wait a minute... you said that you know that the Bible is God's word. He spoke to the authors of the books in the Bible and told them what to write. But wait a minute, if the only way he can hear from him is through the Bible, explain how that works, um kay? Ever heard of the term "catch-22"? patty: "All it takes is a recognition of sin in your life and an understanding that a day can't go by without you disobeying God in some way. This will lead people to ask Him for forgiveness and eternal life. " Sounds like the way you've interpreted the whole thing is like God went about setting us up. He wants us to sin, expects it every day in fact, and he tells us that we must ask for forgiveness and he demands our obedience or he condemns us to an eternal, raging, burning hell. Sounds like fear mongering to me. And you're saying that was what Jesus was all about? He spoke of hell more than anything else? Guess that's where the preachers get the idea to do that, eh? An aggrandizing tactic to be sure. Sorry kat. I promise that this is my last post on that subject. It has gone on ad nauseum.

And, btw, I'm surprised you put much stock in poll numbers. All the polls said that Al Gore would win way back when. Even the exit polls.

Plain: "But you just basically said a few posts back that "doctors, hospitals and pharmacies" have become profit-at-the-cost-of-our-health agencies." And you disagree with that statement because.....?

patty, because I want medical reforms I want to take away people's freedoms that Americans fought and died for? How absurd. Utterly absurd and short-sighted. You've been drinking the "kool-aide" like you Republicans like to say.