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jb4647

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Posts posted by jb4647

  1. quote name='IronTiger' date='Wednesday, December 23, 2009 at 8:59 AM' timestamp='1261580395' post='352756']

    There's a structure in front of the Astrodome which I read was called the "Astrohall". It was torn down around 2004, based on aerials. What was it?

    Here are a couple of shots of the Astrohall taken from Astroworld (the amusment south of 610 that closed in 2005). The 1st shot was taken in July 1968 by my father and the 2nd was taken by be in August 1989.

    post-1265-12628098375569_thumb.jpg

    post-1265-1262809886539_thumb.jpg

  2. When people criticize the Canadian system, I always tell them that it depends on what you care more about - convenience or saving lives.

    In Canada you might have to wait a bit longer to get treated, but statistically less people die of treatable diseases than they do here, and it costs less per capita to provide that quality of care.

    Here, you might wait less time for treatment if you have enough money to pay for it, but the mortality rate is statistically higher.

    What that tells me is that here in the USA we have high convenience at the expense of higher mortality.

    In Canada, even though you might need to wait in line sometimes, that waiting doesn't lead to a statistically higher mortality rate (ie: if it's a life and death matter, you get to skip ahead in line, if it's something that can wait, you might have to wait so that people with more critical conditions can be treated first).

    Ideally, you need to balance convenience and mortality.

    Personally, I value life more than convenience, but I know some people may disagree.

    Strangely, it seems that most people who are content with our health system as it is are more concerned with saving the "lives" of fertilized eggs than full fledged people.

    Great point. You always here the Canadian Health Care system attacked for "rationing" and long waits but that's exactly what happens here in our HMO/PPO-dominated system as well. I can't tell you how many times I've called to make an appointment with a specialist and was told that the earliest I could see them was a 2 months or more. If you do get "squeezed in" to see them, you wind up waiting in the waiting room for hours reading year-old magazines.

    I used to think our health care delivery system was the best when I was in my 20's and never used it. The older I get, the more I find myself using our HMO/PPO dominated health care delivery system and I'm finding all sorts of flaws.

    The US has the most advanced medical skills/knowledge in the world. Its the ACCESS to all of that medical know-now that's the problem.....unless you have loads of $$

  3. Business Roundtable Report

    Not a real encouraging report. While many of us have claimed that the money spent on healthcare while leaving 15% not covered is a flawed system, this report says we're not even getting our money's worth for the healthcare we pay for.

    They say a Conservative is a liberal who's been mugged. I say a liberal is a conservative who gets sick and realizes his/her health insurance is inadequte.

    The older I get the more suspicious of any scheme whereby you pay a monthly fee for years and then expect it to kick in when you acutally need to use it. It's like anything, once they've cashed your check in advance, they screw you.

    I for one am tired of getting those little envelopes in the mail stating that "X isn't covered becasue of such and such." What the hell am I paying $300-$400 a month in premiums for???

  4. Has anyone heard when they are going to open the LA Fitness that was supposed to be above the new Costco at the corner of Richmond & Weslayan? I live just a few blocks from there and that would be very convient for me to workout. I havn't seen any signage indicating an opening date.

    I hope they havn't cancelled their plans to locate there due to the economy.

    I've loving the hell out of that Costco by the way!

  5. I remember that very well. I was nine at the time and experienced the same sort of evening. I remember my parents opening all the windows and doors of the house (we lived in Northwest Houston off of 290/Pinemont) so that the air pressure wouldn't build up.

    The next day (or maybe it was earlier that same day) at school we got word of another Tornado warning and we all piled into a windowless AV room next to our school library at St. Rose of Lima.

    1983 was certainly a year of storms as Hurricane Alicia came thru on August 18th. I still remember the news coverage of that for weeks after. The police blocked off all the streets downtown because glass rained down from the tall skyscapers.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Alicia

    Somebody needs to post video clips on the newscoverage to youtube!

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