To Infinity, and Beyond!

Probably giving $1.5 bil to the Justice Department to round up and imprison without trial posessors of Sam Kinison tapes. You'll all end up in kennels in Gitmo with posessors of calico cats and almanacs. Kim M

PS- I don't know how much national play it's getting, but apparently the Orange Orange alert over the Christmas holidays was caused by some Jordanian-American in Chicago who was PO'd at some family members and called Homeland Security and said they were terrorists, and were going to blow up flight such-and-such. Just turn him loose in the airport on Easter Weekend at some airport where people have been waiting in line for three hours to go through security, and let them beat him to death with detector wands. Kim M

Have you ever heard the phrase "you get what you pay for." Well, it applies to health insurance the same way it does to anything else. IMHO the biggest problem with health care in America today is that a great many people never actually get a bill for it. People are real quick to demand the absolute finest care available for everything, which is understandable, so long as someone else is paying for it. For some reason people seem to feel that they are entitled to Caddilac care at Hyundai prices as if it were some kind of human right. When you have to pay for it yourself all of a sudden you start to wonder if you really needed that test or procedure. You'd be amazed at what you can live with when you can't afford to get treated. Have a cold? Oh well, you most likely will get over it in a few days whether you go to a doctor or not.

I'll let you in on a little secret, medical providers charge insurance companies more than they do if you pay cash. Mind you I don't know too many people who have the cash to pay for reconstructive surgery after an accident, but for normal stuff it's not really that big a deal provided you do some prior planning.

John Benson ------------------------ IPMS El Paso Web Guy

Hi,Ho Rufus and John

Both of your statements are the only ones out of the whole bunch that made any sense. All the other arguments are drivel

What a breath of fresh air.

greg IPMS/RV

I don't know about anyone else, but I am not a "free loader" The cost of health insurance for me and my wife is about 500 bucks a month. That is for basic coverage with high deductables. That is outrageous. What other industry, beside health care, gets to raise prices 20 percent a year when there is "no inflation" and no one asks questions? We are all getting ripped off not only by the insurance companies but by the health care industry.

What is going to the moon is the prices we pay. The free loaders are a large part of the problem. Did you ever look at what a hospital charges for an asprin? That is more out of control that what the Pentagon pays for toilet seats...........

A trillion dollars to go to Mars? I can think of a lot of things to do with that kind of money like lowering our debt. I am not some kind of bleeding heart liberal looking for a free ride, in fact, I am just the oposite.

My point was, that these political idiots make lots of boasts and promises to get votes. They never intend to follow through on any of this. It is just a bunch of "feel good" stuff. We need to get back to reality.

You are FREE LOADING on my computer with your SPAM. Go someplace else with your crap. Pete

The way you wish to have your tax money spend is none of my concern indeed. Nor do I feel any urge to laugh at you over the next twenty years because I don't see the humour of it all. But since the subject was brought up in this public forum I gladly give my opinion on the matter. Which is, if my tax money were involved I would like it seeing spend on solving society problems first rather than on large space projects. Regardless if the money in question would be sufficient to solve a particular problem. Its just a matter of principle. We all have our opinions, and none of them are important. But it is a pastime to vent them and that's what rec-groups are about right?

Oh, *sure*! *You* don't *build* car models!

Leave our 1:1's alone!

-- C.R. Krieger (Been there; done that)

In case you haven't been listening (not that the press has been saying much about it, so I guess there IS an excuse this time) a fair sized cache of Silkworm missiles with intact bio-chem warheads was discovered sometime about a week or two ago, along with another cache of similar mortar rounds loaded with a blistering agent - such agents when inhaled cause what amounts to "instant pnuemonia" and the victim ends up drowning (slowly) in his/her own body fluids...but I suppose that's tolerable to the libs out there...

The mortar rounds might not be such a big deal, but the Silkworms should be bothering the HELL out of folks, and yet the press isn't giving the story much airtime...I only caught the news myself because I happened to be home for lunch at the right time.

I agree, John - and not just with health insurance, but I'm convinced that your argument holds for insurance in general. Insurance in general is basically a socialist/communist/collectivist economic scheme tantamount to racketeering, IMO. And a great source of all of our economic woes.

What's the solution?...beats the hell out of me, but if LLoyd's of London was to suddenly go belly up I wouldn't be shedding any tears...

Thanks.

The logic behind insurance is to take a small certain periodic cost in preference to an unexpected large cost, with a group (all of them sharing the risk) paying off to individuals. At one time, when all insurance groups were mutual (that is, everyone in the group shared in the ownership, the risk and the benefits), this was an approach that made a lot of sense. Regrettably, insurance became so institutionalized (you must have it to buy a house via mortgage; you must have it to legally drive a vehicle) that the prudence associated with buying insurance has been replaced by a reflexive desire/need to buy insurance for everything, to expect employers to provide it, and to spend ever-increasing numbers of dollars on administering the benefits (or, often, the exclusions). There are plenty of conceptual reforms that could be tried, but with the amount of people feeding directly or indirectly from this particular trough, good luck seeing any change in the near future.

Mark Schynert

I knew about the mortar rounds, apparently some forgotten relics of the '91 war. I did not learn of the Silkworm missiles. Please route me a news link on this subject. Kim M

To Bankruptcy, and Beyond- Bush Lightyear

Anyone who listens to that crap probably deserves to be imprisoned without trial ;~)

"The world would be a much simpler place if every one could pick and choose their obligations, but we can't and we shouldn't." Major Charles W. Whittlesey

paid for. ........ thank you NASA.

It sounds to me like you'd be one of those who would be highly in favorr of spending that space exploration money on "pay me for no work" welfare and social programs then. It's a wonder you had the time to look for work at all; with all the tennis and other such committments.

"The world would be a much simpler place if every one could pick and choose their obligations, but we can't and we shouldn't." Major Charles W. Whittlesey

I don;t like the way the Haliburton thing presently looks either but all the facts are not out and, until that time, I think I'll refrain from judgement. Perhaps you have more info than have been published so far or are privie to the investigation that's just gotten underway.

Regarding nonexistent WMD; perhaps you'd like to mention that to Kurdish survivors who lived in Halabja; oh, wait a minute, there were no survivors. They were all gassed to death. I'm sure Chemical Ali would get a big kick out of your statement too.

Maybe you might like to bring that up at the next meeting of the next meeting of the Iranian Veterans of the Iraq War. Unfortunately, many of them can't talk to or see you due to the mustard gas damage to their lungs and their eyes.

"The world would be a much simpler place if every one could pick and choose their obligations, but we can't and we shouldn't." Major Charles W. Whittlesey

What the hell do you care if the US spends money to go to the moon or Mars, or even "YoUranus", anyway.

Your country isn't going to the moon or anywhere else, for that matter. Whatever the cost, you ain't paying one cent (or Franc or euro, or whatever the hell you use for money). It doesn't impact you so you have no standing on the matter.

"The world would be a much simpler place if every one could pick and choose their obligations, but we can't and we shouldn't." Major Charles W. Whittlesey

Spam = Unsolicited Commercial Email.

Unsolicited = nope. Part of a discussion on a newsgroup. Un-agreed-with, apparently, but that's not the same. Commercial = wasn't selling anything but an opinion. Email = well, it was on a newsgroup. If we expand that to E-communications, then you have 1 out of 3.

The press are busy in California where world shaking events took place this morning, or so they'd have us believe...

Bill Banaszak

It's an election year. We'll be swimming in 'visions' until the election's over then we just get the pointed end of the stick.

Bill Banaszak