Journal Captain Splendid's Journal: 2 birds, one turd 18
Since there's no money for all this socialism that Obama wants to inflict on the country, it doesn't really matter what you think of it ideologically, it's still a Bad Idea.
Until I had a massive brainfart. See, all these fascist programs strip away freedoms, right? Well, that's great! If America no longer has freedoms, then the terrorists will no longer have any reason to hate us! And all the money saved not having to fight terrorists can be spent on all these gubmint programs. Everybody wins! (Except the terrorists, and they're poopy-heads anyway and nobody cares.)
I'm a fucking genius. Implement this at once, while I go sleep the sleep of the dead and the just.
Until I had a massive brainfart. See, all these fascist programs strip away freedoms, right? Well, that's great! If America no longer has freedoms, then the terrorists will no longer have any reason to hate us! And all the money saved not having to fight terrorists can be spent on all these gubmint programs. Everybody wins! (Except the terrorists, and they're poopy-heads anyway and nobody cares.)
I'm a fucking genius. Implement this at once, while I go sleep the sleep of the dead and the just.
Or just end the wars ... (Score:2)
The trillion-dollar cost of the public health-care option is spread over the next decade. A couple of years of no wars pays for it - IIRC, it was called the "peace dividend" a few administrations ago.
Besides, socialized (government-paid) health-care is already a fact in the US, and has been for decades.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_the_United_States [wikipedia.org]
No more need for Death Panels (Score:1)
I guess you didn't read all the comments from the last JE; if people would just get circumcised then the spread of disease will be halted and billions saved in health care spending. No more need for the private insurance death panels that have supported the financial industry. This will also end the FUD resulting from where people are born. BTW I personally suspect the Republican governor of California to be a foreigner of Austrian origin and Nazi heritage.
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Ultimately, it boils down to 2 choices - a forced "single-payer" system and damn the political fallout, or continuing decline in much of the nation's health-care outcomes.
With all the stuff we now know about the HMOs, maybe they could be shut down under RICO? If there's anyone less popular than the banksters, it's got to be the HMOs.
As for Ted Kennedy, I don't know where he got his rep as a boozer - I understood his limit was one Bloody Mary.
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I understood his limit was one Bloody Mary.
Hilarious. But. So. Very. Cold.
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Well, by morning, so was she ... you could say that after shaken, not stirred.
Kennedy was caught lying under oath about taking a wrong turn (it was intentional - he wanted to do some "parking", wink wink nudge nudge). His going to bed and pretending nothing had happened the next morning was cold. Stupid. Childish. Silver-spoon-in-the-mouth. What he did was manslaughter - especially since it was shown that MJ could have been saved if he had just gone to the closest house and called for help.
Apparently, t
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If Ted Kennedy was alive today, he'd turn in his grave.
(Too soon?)
Gees, dude, he just died yesterday. There hasn't even been a funeral yet! And I don't think he'll spin in his grave, the news repoprt I saw said he was going to be cremated.
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The wealthy almost always get cremated. Makes potential bastards looking for a chunk of the estate easily discouraged.
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I always thought because the wealthy are always cheapskates- and a cremation is about 1/10th the cost of an embalming.
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Err, isn't it the people inheriting the big pile o' cash that are paying for it? So rather than spend an extra cent on a dead corpse, they get rid of it as quickly and cheaply as they can.
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I always thought because the wealthy are always cheapskates- and a cremation is about 1/10th the cost of an embalming.
A cremation can be just as expensive or more so than a coffin based funeral. Unless you haggle and shop around, you'll be expected to dole out of lot of money.
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A cremation can be just as expensive or more so than a coffin based funeral. Unless you haggle and shop around, you'll be expected to dole out of lot of money. [Emphasis mine]
Can, but generally isn't.
There are more authoritative sources, but as a quick and dirty comparison, burials are in the $5K to $10K range [yahoo.com] and cremations are running $1K to $2K... [yahoo.com]
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I guess it depends (I got my info first hand from somebody in the funeral business). If you use a cardboard coffin and have the government take care of the burial then I would think the funeral shouldn't be more than a few hundred dollars, if that. Most of the cost in funerals goes to up selling and suggestive selling overpriced items that people will hopefully be too emotionally upset over to haggle about.
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No cemetery in Oregon will take a simple cardboard coffin- they all require cement vaults now to prevent certain liquefied remains from getting into the water table. The *ONLY* way you can get by with the cardboard coffin trick in Oregon, is if you go for cremation.
I agree, most of the cost beyond the initial $5000 burial is upselling. But there's no way a rich person is going to be able to get the government to take care of the burial for them- and that's $3500 of the cost!
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Around here, cremation complete with ceremony and urn but only a cardboard casket runs you $700-$1000, burial $6000-$10,000. Yes, it's still a lot of money for the funeral home- either way, I hear funeral home markup is running 75%- but a huge difference in cost due to such EPA needs as a vault and gas-proof liner in the burial.
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Holy fuck - that'll be like lightning a Steno lamp.
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Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (Score:2, Interesting)
That is truly an amazing brain fart. Unfortunately,
Hate + a guarantee of eternal salvation = opiate of the masses,
and, ALL our freedoms can not be taken, because we (Men in america) have certain inalienable rights.
So, since for male americans, rights can approach but never equal zero, and therefore hatred of our rights can never go to zero, and eternal salvation remains constant, the opiate of the masses will always be greater than zero and we still have to spend all our money on fighting terrorists.
QED.
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