bjorn_skurj

Their plan is to continue the status quo, which hasn't been that bad at all for insurance companies and for-profit hospitals.

The banh mi sandwich I just had made my mouth come alive.

It's one that the Republicans and the health-insurance industry could live with, sure, even as they both howl like stuck pig-dogs about how socialist and wicked it is.

"It takes a Nixon to go to China." - Mr. Spock

Pat Metheny? OW.

That'll be even harder!

Mr. Heartbreak, I agree with you 100 percent but I do not see how in the framework of how we do things in this country that a multibillion-dollar industry is going to be legislated out of existence.

There was actually some talk in our office about them actually NOT offering us insurance if it turns out we could get it cheaper as free agents on an exchange. Many unknowns.

Well, it's a form of state-compelled participation in a capitalistic enterprise.

Yeah, that's killer if you have to pay things like rent, a car loan, etc.

I have to say, I have never fully bought the concept of "Oh, all these people don't have health insurance? Let's solve this by making a law saying they have to have health insurance!" Or put another way, I didn't think the bad guys in the story were the devil-may-care 20-somethings who could afford insurance, but didn't feel like paying for it. But I am speaking from the perspective of someone who makes not a lot of money working for a small company that can't pay even half of the insurance premium and hasn't given anybody a raise since 2006. So, I am waiting until next spring and when we find

1. I am sorry to have to be the one to break this to the group, but really - the election cycle never ends. Parties on every level are constantly planning and raising money for the next election, which is never far away, with House elections every two years and (in New York at least) state legislative races every two years as well. 2. Regular people have been getting it good and hard since the 1970s and no sequester or shutdown will make a damn bit of difference.

Elections are what decides what gets done.

If they give it to Rand Paul, that's another eight years of a Democrat in the White House. SURELY there is someone in the Republican hierarchy aware of this. But it may in fact be that we are about to witness the mitosis of the GOP into the Tea Party and the Fiscally Conservative/Hawkish on Foreign Policy But Non-Racist/Non-Revolutionary Party. Christie's fatness will be an issue, but it is certainly true that more and more Americans look like him every day.

My poor friend Dave who works at West Point for the DOD is struggling with a 20 percent pay cut for the next few months, so for him the sequester sucks massive moose, but otherwise it's been a not-that-big-of-a-thing. Hillary vs. Christie in 2016 should be a fun race.

It sure was - perhaps the greatest contribution MTV of old ever made to American culture was showing that show.

Are you Neil from The Young Ones?

I'll say this - two straight days of "vegetable medley" will clean out your system good and proper.

It takes many people a lifetime to learn that they can relate to bands and their music in any way they please and no one can say them nay.

I am sorry to have to be the one who pointed it out to you, but better me than a lot of people on here who would take smarmy delight in it.

That must have been something else, a for-show hoops team taking on a USFL squad.

Hey, you never know. We were gonna go to Santa Fe for the ALJ convention in October, but decided the money would be better spent on a new kitchen.

That you can definitely not get around here unless you make it your damned self.

You know what southern food I am craving now? Spicy boil crawfish.