Gooch

Many years ago when I worked in radio, I ran the "Dr. Dean Edell Show". Once I can recall him mentioning research that many times European doctors do not tell elderly, terminally ill patients of their illnesses or of heroic treatments. They can't be treated anyway. Doctors are intelligent, responsible, folks who we trust with discretion in decision making. I can't say those things about any governing official I've ever met. You'd have a hard time finding someone that wants to deny another healthcare. It's like opposing ending world hunger. A geat idea. But not practical.

No politican will tell you this. But we should fear un-rationed care as much as rationed care. Why? Because un-rationed care will lead to shortages. Think of it like this. If we made food free. "Customers" could choose from any items in a grocery store without regard to price. The store would quicly run out of lobster, the best cuts of meat, and highest grades of fish. Thus, these foods would only be available to the the lucky first-in-line, or those with "friends" in the grocery store. When healthcare is perceived to be free, nothing prevents "customers" from abusing the system by overusing it - depriving it to others that actually need to access the system. The effect is the same as we have now. Only a finite number of "customers" will receive the limited amount of available services.

Thank you as well RedScare. That is the exact context!

Ah. Thank you August. I still wish I knew whom to accredit it to. Afterall, in today's economy, credit is EVERYTHING!

It is inevitably a morbid discussion. It's unscientific... but as I look back on friends/family that have died prematurely: 6 - were involved in car vs. car accidents. 1 - was killed in a solo bike accident (with helmet). 2 - were killed in a car vs. bike accident. 1 - died in a aircraft crash. 2 - died of heartattacks. Both had regular physicals that did not detect any problems, one had an EKG for his race driving physical only 3-months prior. 1 - had cancer, but was treated to the gold standard. 0 - died because of lack care, or an insurance company limiting care. To my mind... the biggest threat to one's longevity is likely commuting to work every day (by car or bike). If I could get a guarentee of no automotive accidents, but I never get to see a doctor again... I'd take that deal. To paint the current situation as if people are dying en masse because of lack of proper care doesn't match my observations. Great, now I can't get that Jim Carrell Band song out of my head! I don't know who to cite, but I've read: "In the 'American Way' profits are capitalized and losses are socialized."

Excluding malpractice... no one dies because of our healthcare system. Age, heart disease, cancer, automotive accidents, and the like kills people. Not our healthcare "system". Our healthcare system causes none of those things, and ultimately prevents death from none of them. No amount of reform will change that, nor prevent a single death from occuring. Delay it... perhaps. But given that the majority of the medical care over a lifetime is received in the last 3-years, that record is far from perfect. We shall all die in the end. Not even Obama can deliver everlasting life.

But is that really an accurate vignette of our nation? I haven't seen anyone dying a death from pestilence in atleast a week! For someone with the capacity to articulate a positive message, Obama seems to be cultivating a mood of self-loathing pity and (IMO false) misery. As someone that loves this country, it's bounding on offensive. Is it really so bad here? America is a damn good place that provides amazing opportunities to lift oneself above the need for subsidized living. And we have the illegal immigrants to prove it.

Best advice is do just you would driving on the road. Stay to the right allowing faster traffic to pass on the left. It's the biker's duty to pass safely, or yield if necessary. C. - is not an option. You have as much right to be there as anyone on a bike.

I doubt it will remain "Burgerzilla" for long. I once got a Cease & Desist letter from the studio that owns the Godzilla rights for a screen name that was _zilla. For some reason they are very protective of that mark.

I'm going to say one thing on this thread then never reopen it again. For all those that want the government to run their healthcare need to remember something... Keeping in mind that GWB (who liberals consider an idiot got elected TWICE).... Sarah Palin could win in 2012, 2016, or 2020. Do you really want to risk having her in charge of your healthcare?

By your definition it qualifies. In fact, that pic was taken while waiting for a flat to be fixed. It's off the training route because of all the pinch flats. Not to mention the taint busters. Sorry I couldn't take pictures of all the potholes. I've only got a 4M SD card. Exactly. You end up riding in the street. Kinda defeats the purpose. And really ticks off drivers when you have a biker in the car lane with "perfectly good" bike lane. Bad situation all around. Yes! I poop rose petals too! Seriously, any bike commute in HOUTX longer than about 3min requires a shower unless you work outdoors. I'd prefer to ride than sit. Just a lifestyle choice.

Ya! It's only about 17 miles. That's about an an hour, maybe hour+15. Figure waiting 20min for a bus to turn up at the pickup point and 20min at a transfer point and the bike is competitive.

Before you add up of those miles-and-miles of Houston bike lanes you need to subtract the ones that are unridable. Like this one on Morningside... The sub-roadbed's actually collapsed in numerous spots between Main and Rice Village. Looks like the city got tired of doing maintenance on it, so they gave up and turned it into a bike lane. The bike lane on Weslyan also comes to mind as dangerously narrow and too rough to ride with any rapidity. That isn't to say that HOUTX doesnt' have some nicely constructed and executed bike lanes. The ones on 12th that link up to Post Oak then Memorial are excellent. Unforutnately it's illegal to ride on Memorial just a few miles west of the tie-in, so I'm not quite sure their purpose. To be fair, just about all of the goofiest lanes pre-date the current bikeways coordinator who's working very hard to secure improvements. This one actually *gasp* rides a bike. What makes HOUTX so unbikable are the lack of complete routes. For example, there is no thru-route from Downtown to the Energy Corridor via bike lanes. That would be a reasonable commute, but there's no good way to do it without taking a very tortuous route, or being forced to navigate over-crowded streets. Again this isn't entirely the City of Houston's fault, as the Memorial Villages forbid bikes on the road. Works great on Heights Blvd.

Correct. And when I wrote of rising inventories, that would be nationally. However... I dont' know the source of your stats. But typically, single-family homes does not include condos. While the "latest real estate summary" may paint a rosy picture; it paints a rosy picture only of SFRs. It is not directly indicative of the condo market. The condo market could be completely tanked and not show up in the SFR stats pointed to. Not saying the market is tanked (or not). Just that could be without the fanfare of grim market indicators. I didn't intend to imply anything deeper than that, sorry.

TheNiche is probably already aware but... it's worth remembering that housing statistics like months of inventory, housing starts, existing home sales, Case-Shiller indicies, etc. do not include condominiums. Even without them, inventories are still increasing. If condominiums were included the real estate picture would be that much more grim. Best of luck to the 2727 developers. They are going to need it.

Good thing they don't have yards!

Friday night fireworks at MinuteMaid park? I definately heard them, but don't remember what time...

The Galleria area is not only famous it's shopping but also its gridlocked traffic. It's not unreasonable for people to react negatively to the (preceived) impending traffic situation.

Editor... you're doing a heck of a job. And I DON'T mean that in a GWB to Michael Brown sorta way Thanks for making this place so hospitable.

It's not that she's a racist. She's their racist. It's the same concept as Congress. Polls indicate the public detests congressional over-spending. The same polls indicate most of the public loves their congressional members, because they do a lot for their home district. The irony is deafening. The segement of American population that actually likes racism is incredibly small. Miniscule. But the segment that's willing to blind themselves, tolerate, ignore, or utilize it to advance their own personal political agenda is wide and stretches across both parties. One has to wonder why Obama appointed someone with an overt history of stated racial bais. Appointing justices with obvious (though opposing) biases isn't the solution. It's the problem. Each side points the finger at the other and says "they did it, so we're going to do it back to them only more". It really is schoolyard tactics. I'm disappointed that Obama didn't try to change the trend of evermore biased appointments to the Court. He missed an opportunity to make an important change to our political processes. So much for the "new tone" in Washington.

A lot of people don't realize that before laying a pipeline in the Gulf of Mexico, you must first do an archaelogic survey (by sonar, of course!). Partially, the purpose is to search for evidence of prehistoric civilization. Reading the reports is interesting. A very wide swath of the continental shelf was once not only exposed as dry land, but almost certainly inhabited. That's real climate change -not a degree over the last century.

Of course they do. The price of housing, building materials, and personal property has increased dramatically over the past 50 years. When the media quotes XXX event as the most expensive in history, they aren't adjusting the $'s for inflation. That's an example of using statistical analysis upon a non-static system. Using statistical methods (especially trending) for non-static sytems like climate is also frought with similar dangers. The stock market's been (mostly) up since March. But we cannot assume it will only continue to rise into the future. Trending is the wrong tool for the wrong job. A proper dynamical model is required. Dynamical models are extremely sensitive to inputs that always contain the modeler's bias in setting up the inital conditions. Back when I was modeling groundwater contaminant transport I could justify and tweek the initial conditions and a host of assumed but unverifiable parameters to have almost whatever outcome I wanted. Those are the same numeric methods used for climate modeling. I don't have any experience with climate models but I'd be surprised if they could not be influenced similarly. I do know this. Water vapour can hold, transfer, and transport a lot more heat than CO2. I've never heard a good explaination how the heat transfer effects of single-phase CO2 can overcome the self-dampening effect of two-phase water vapour in our atmosphere. Changing phases moves a looot of heat.

If in the Heights... don't care. Something tragic would be appropriate!

THANK YOU RED!!!!! Yes it is a stolen concept! Not many people know you are supposed to wear linen or searsucker to White Linen night or why your are suppposed to wear such attire. Here's a clue... it has nothing to do with the table cloth... just sayin...