smccrory

Dang, wish I was going to be around for this!

How on earth did you learn how to do that?

Shut you mouf! Republicans are all about moral, family-orented, clean living values. Then again, the liberal mainstream media will also be in town... :-P

Republican! There ya go, don't you feel better now? :-P I agree, and wish Columbus would have scored the deal. For good or bad, I don't think a convention reflects one way or another upon a city. Heck, I don't even remember where the last Rep and Dep conventions were held, but I'm sure the local economies appreciated them! The only bummer is the traffic snarl and security clusters, especially if the party hosts a visiting prez or famous dignitary. I sure hope they don't invite Clint Eastwood back through - that was... awkward...

Sounds good, thanks! I'll decide the closer we get to the event.

I'm probably in. Would it better to bring a 250 D/S or a 650 ADV? I'm thinking CRF250L for ease of use, threading through traffic, etc. but I can carry more water and supplies on the 'Strom, so...?

Absolutely. My V-Strom 650 ABS is a little heavier, has nearly the same engine as the SV and the Gladius, and can pull away from a tractor trailer on the highway, 2-up, with ease, even in 6th gear. 5th gear if going up an incline. JackFlash, come ride on the back of mine or get a demo ride of the SV, FZ6 or V-Strom - they're all a lot more powerful than you think.

Agreed, there absolutely has to be a balance because pure socialism just doesn't work - humans aren't evolved enough to put out work for such abstraction of reward. But at the same time, pure capitalism is ruthlessly efficient and cares little about the wake they leave behind, to be burdened by the public. I'm being loud to the point of shrill about this because I think balance, moderation and involvement is what our political theater is missing so much now especially with media wh***s on Fox, MSNBC and their like pushing the pendulum around like a tether ball because they profit from enhanced outrage.

Without question this is excellent advice. That is a beautiful SV650S ABS, for sure. As you said Brian, modern fuel-injected 650-class bikes have a shit-ton more power and grins per gallon than he knows.

Gotta love these Stroms. GLWS!

My intent is not to take away from the vast wealth these and many others generated for our country or the world - indeed, we would be a very different nation, perhaps under different rule if the industrial era had not occurred. But don't forget for one moment their often ruthless methods and the environmental disasters and human injury and deaths in those methods' wake. It is a historical fact that they placed McKinley into office to maintain freedom from regulation - something that backfired in them when they slotted Roosevelt in as his VP as a "keep him silent and isolated" strategy. When McKinley was shot, Truman's social equality agent kicked in with force. Seriously, there some heavy parallel to those times and today - don't fool yourself for a moment that there isn't. All of this has happened before... The debates are the same. Anyone who believes that any fair levels of government regulation (for some, that's any at all) is tantamount to communist hippie vegetarian agrarianism is drinking the barron's kool aid too deeply.

So have the I.T. and entertainment industries.

Yet another straw man - you either have unfettered industrial capitalism or toilet paper waiting lines. Man, you guys drank this stuff up. Where is your memory of history? Remember when American auto corporations fought to block seat belts and air bags and ABS systems because they would unfairly burden consumers and yet now are enjoying record profits? Remember banking regulators rendered impotent during the 2000s while "financial market innovations" drove massive profits in the banking sector right up until 2008? I could go on and on and on. Capitalism indeed has produced some of the greatest economic advancements the world has known, but not without massive public cost. The right approach is to place outer guard rails on them so that they play fairly and don't dump their waste and risk and tail of consequences on the public. If they're going to benefit from public infrastructure, then they need to respect the public interests as well.

You're under the impression that it's an either-or, and it's not. And that's the same exact argument that Morgan, Carnegie and Rockefeller used back in the day, so like I said, history is repeating itself. It's awesome really - Convince a bunch of dupes that you either have to have unfettered industrial capitalism or no progress at all.

This thread has some outstanding advice. I don't have anything to add except that.

Me and the rest of the voters - priceless. While you in your philosopher's chair sits non-complicit from it all? Inaction is no solution - it's just as much part of uncreative status-quo that allows things like the VA to occur. Letting prices rise to obscene levels as a result of profit-driven delivery is no solution. Using the VA's incompetence as justification to let privatization rule is no solution. Jim you're so fed up, I get it, but I can't accept that "it's all fucked, and y'all are the problem" as anything except actively-disengaged resignation.

True, it was one republican's plan until the dems co-opted it and the repubs couldn't stand to see something succeed with another's name on it.

Of course not, nobody does and that's a false equality. I expect you next to tell me how DMV and Post Office workers will be deciding which grandparent dies when their medication gets too expensive. But while we're making comparisons, do you support the same people who drive Merck, Proctor, Kline, Humana, Cigna and UHC earnings statements to run everyone's healthcare? Because that's what they're doing already by default.

Nerkity derp

+1 :-)

Because government already exists explicitly to serve, protect the people. We have a military to fight foreign foes, a CDC and so many other departments to protect common interests, so why not one to "combat" health threats? Technically it wouldn't have to be government though - it could be any entity operating for the same purpose. It could be a non-profit consortium that delivers healthcare, but it would only be non-governmental in name, so there'd be little point. Unless you believe profit should be made off the suffering of citizens, then let's just stick with the republican plan.

Understood and I didn't mean one begets the other. I was just busy making the pooling argument.

Sure, emotionally, I agree completely. I don't want my own personal liberties to be restricted either. But we've got to be mindful about where the liberty argument is being used, and it's not first and foremost for the individual, it's for the corporation. Go back in time not even a hundred years and you'll find the exact same arguments made by Morgan, Rockefeller, Carnegie and their federated industry mouthpieces, used to protect their ability to conduct business free and loose, and let the public bear the costs for their corporate "freedom." Heck, just look at any superfund site for what's left over when corporate freedom reigns, absent from the "tyranny of government regulation." My home state of West Virginia is full of them. Put frankly, business owners are using the personal freedom pitch to let them operate more loosely so they don't have to bear the consequental costs. Heck, the supreme court now recognizes corporations as people. And beautifully, I've never heard so many singing their song in sweet, sweet harmony. It's a fantastic thing when the people you're using are the ones most appreciate of that use, if they're even aware of the extent... History is repeating itself.

The way I look at it, the public suffers the burdens of individual's poor health choices whether we want to admit it or not. We talk about freedoms from the government and all that, but when a calorie-guzzling, chain-smoking fat freak gets sick, it's gonna either get completely paid by him (unlikely), his employer's insurance (split burden between the company and the risk pool) or the public in the form of a very large insurance risk pool or loaded into ALL risk pools as a higher cost of medical care because as a nation we don't want to let anyone die at the doors of an ER. Given that, it doesn't really matter if insurance is mandated or not - the expense is borne by everyone anyway. However, with mandated insurance (i.e. universal healthcare), the availability of covered preventative healthcare helps to prevent poor health choices, or at least to mitigate them earlier in the disease cycles when they're less expensive to treat. That's why I'm a fan of mandated health insurance and competitive insurance markets - not as a power play or communist plot to obtain everyone's bodily fluids for secret chemtrail experiments, but as a way to encourage healthier behavior, like getting regular checkups and treating issues before they fester. As far as birth control goes... If you know that people are going to be frisky no matter what you tell them, and that your risk pool is going to pay for extra children anyway, why not give folks cheap or free birth control? Telling someone not to get freaky is a lot harder than telling them to use birth control, that's for sure. Finally, as for Hobby Lobby's ruling, I agree with Cheech - the ruling itself appeared to be very narrow, but there are already cases forming to extend it as precedent to justify more employer-exemptions, which will dump those costs back into the public's risk pool.

Awesome. I have bragging rights at work with my 3800 but you've got me more than doubled.