Yes, since the bills would be covered by insurance.
After the deductibles and co-pays. I have a "platinum" plan through my employer; better insurance than anyone else I know and the co-pays still total up to a considerable amount. No deductibles for in-network on my plan, which makes me extremely fortunate. As a single guy I can afford the co-pays even with my modest salary but I can see how quickly they would bankrupt someone with a family, particularly if said family had one or more members with a chronic illness.
Incidentally, I was just exposed to rabies a few months ago:
Strike One: The only place to get the immunoglobulin is the ER, because it's very expensive (>$4,500) and has a short shelf-life. ER co-pay: $150
Strike Two: There's a set schedule for the vaccine, Days 0, 3, 7, and 14. You can get the vaccine from your primary, in theory, but of course my primary has a months long waiting list because we're driving PCPs out of business. Bottom line, I can't get appointments with them for Days 3 or 7, so that's two more trips to the ER. Additional co-pay total: $300
Strike Three: New York State ostensibly has a fund to pay for out of pocket expenses related to rabies exposures, but they only reimburse for the rabies vaccine and immunoglobulin. Since the ER decided to give me a tetanus shot on Day 0 NYS won't reimburse me, even though my out of pocket would have been $150 with or without this extra shot. Hooray for bureaucracy!
Totaling all this up, that stupid bat that found its way into my apartment has personally cost me $465 ($450 of ER co-pays, $15 of PCP co-pay) while my insurance company is on the hook for close to $7,000. My annual premium is about $6,000. So this one incident wiped out every penny they made on me and then some. I'm an otherwise healthy 32 year old marathon runner that ought to be subsidizing those who are less fortunate. Now imagine a family of four that were all exposed to the same scenario I was.....
Solar power and wind power will not sustain humanity for the length of the Earth's existence (nor will oil or coal).
Solar will keep on working right up until the sun dies on us in a few billion years. So yes. Yes it will.
Again, if you fight for an enemy nation in a war expect people are going to be angry at you.
There was no fight for an enemy nation in Odessa. There were anti-Maidan protesters.
Yanokovych employed snipers against massive peaceful protests, they occupied buildings but they also had hundreds of thousands of people. The pro-Russians have never had a tenth as many.
Except that it was not even proven that it was Yanukovich who used the snipers. And he wasn't indiscriminately shelling civilians in western Ukraine either. I have a coworker from Ukraine, his extended family in Donetsk (a young woman with two children) was killed by Ukrainian artillery.
Like I said, Yanukovich was a bloody crook, a common criminal who came to power, but compared to the current Ukrainian government he was almost a saint.
And you can't compare Yanoyovych's actions to a defence from an actual invasion.
What invasion are you talking about? There is a civil war going on. Irregulars on one side, quickly legalized former irregulars on the other side. Ukraine would never stand a chance against an actual invasion from Russia. Compare that to the utterly professional and practically bloodless annexion of Crimea. And this is why Ukrainian army doesn't even try to do anything about that, they know they don't stand a chance. Shelling cities, on the other hand, is easy. Especially these in Eastern Ukraine - Galicians don't consider Eastern Ukrainians to be real Ukrainians, even though they themselves were ousted from Poland when ethnic Poles were thrown out of Western Ukraine after WW2. They don't even speak the same language - a mix of Ukrainian and Polish by the Galicians, Surzhik by Eastern Ukrainian.
There's nothing criminal or fascist about the current rulers.
Svoboda was recognized as a neo-nazi party by basically every European country. And even though this party was in minority in the last elections, they suddenly have received a lot of interesting positions after Maidan because their armed thugs helped the coup. And what followed were banning oppositional parties, censorship of media and other nice things that typically follow after a fascist coup.
Tell me what they should have done in response to an invasion that you wouldn't consider "criminal" or "fascist".
An invasion has to happen first. Then one regular army can fight another regular army.
I gotta admit, as a kid I liked the 2 CRPG "GoldBox" versions of Buck Rodgers.
a) No one knows how the fire started, both sides were throwing molotov cocktails, and the majority of the crowd attempted to help evacuate the building.
You can see in numerous youtube videos that while some of the crowd helped the people out, others happily continued to throw incendiaries into the windows. Majority my arse.
b) Ally yourself with an enemy nation who has just invaded and annexed part of the country, take over buildings by force, then kill some peaceful protesters. You really expect to get a kind response?
Imagine that Yanukovich had done the same to the maidan thugs, what the current national guard does to civilists in Donetsk. For all his faults he was a saint in comparison.
They simply hand over half the country to actual murderous criminals and fascists?
Actual murderous criminals and fascists already own the majority of the country. What difference would it make?
The communist party of Ukraine. 13% of voters have voted for them in the last parliament election - the fourth largest party back then. Banning oppositional parties is something that even that crook Yanukovich did not dare.
Sure about Space X being the cheapest? If I remember correctly, Zenit is yet cheaper.
I do believe you, but Czech republic seems to be different so it was very helpful to learn a bit Czech - especially the part that differes with Russian. That really helps to transform a Russian sentence into a sort of broken Czech that was, in my experience, better understandable for them, than English.
Romanians often speak decent English, and, obviously, French (that is one language I, for one, struggle with). Poles are also fine with English.
And what's your explanation for why the Ukrainians would want to inflict civilian casualties?
Sheer primitive tribalism. The guys who have burned people alive in Odessa had a lot of fun doing it. And they were cheered at by several local politicians.
There was nothing murderous or repressive about the government
Well, shelling civilians and arming neo-faschist thugs surely counts for murderous. And as for repressive, they banned an oppositional party few days ago.
That is what I did. I was actually surprised that many people in their twenties don't speak English, or, if they do, then just barely. But some of them speak Russian - with a funny accent, but pretty well.
I wish they would actually do that. Czech are notoriously bad when it comes to foreign languages. I live in Germany and visit Prague every now and then.When I ask for directions in English, I get something unintelligible as reply. When I try in German, they give me blank stares. When I repeat my question in Russian (yes, I speak Russian as well), they either reply in Russian or they reply in Czech but it is often close enough to understand - Slavic languages are like that.
"May your future be limited only by your dreams." -- Christa McAuliffe
