oscarsear

Yes. Especially in undesirable areas. The pressure is on to create a two-tiered system, or maybe even three tiers. At the top will be doctors, in the middle will be PAs and NPs to care for all but the most serious, and at the bottom will be outfits like Remote Area Medical to serve the indigent. Many of the clinics today have 1 doctor and 12 PAs. Or similar kinds of arrangements. And PAs are totally adequate for almost all routine medicine. Even an RN can manage people's HTN and Diabetes. It surely doesn't take a doctor for that stuff. Routine medicine is all heuristics anyway. Very little skill is involved. Yes, but these PAs and nurse practitioners still have to practice under a doctors Liscense, so it is all about putting more money in the physicians pocket... Roger PA's may have to work under a medical doctor but nurse practitioners can be independent in most states. The ACA was written by the insurance industry and it has been rendered the golden goose for health care. Essentially the feds told the insurance industry to write what they wanted, charge what they desired, cover what they wished and then the gov't would force the citizens to buy the product for themselves and pay extra for those unable to afford the product on their own (stated) income. What may have been a noble idea has morphed into precisely the opposite of the causes championed. It really is a shambles and will be a real mess to unravel and replace with ?????. Also when we have lawyers writing the laws they never curtail their own piggy banks - malpractice law remains unchanged and that leads to unnecessary tests and tons of wasted $$$$$$.

Police brutality is not new. What is new are the tools to record police behavior so that it can be reviewed by the public using public forums like this one. What is alarming to me is the blanketed defensive stance presented by police unions and police members to all but the most blatant abuses. It is not a simple role but one which is so important that it certainly merits much introspection. In the 'rock throwing' video we had multiple officers running through a very busy intersection in the the middle of the day firing guns at a fleeing suspect.......... for throwing rocks. The mere act of firearms deployed recklessly should send off klaxons. A divide seems to have been established and widening between police authorities and the public they serve. This is why using these forums is so important. Opinions written here come from many parts of this country and they do reflect a broad consensus of perspective. Sadly we again see the 'us V them' responses. Police misbehavior has never been deemed tolerable. Today our police have better training and better equipment that at any time in the past. It is very hard to watch how some of them conduct police work and even harder to listen to those actions being defended.

They look great. That motor board cut out just offers up a shelf for dust accumulation.

yes sir - I agree Ah....... she did not die from choking on a ham sandwich. There was a ham sandwich in her room and it was half consumed....... but she died from heart disease not choking. But....... the fatal heart ailment was a consequence of her longstanding morbid obesity.

The answer to the last bolded section is "yes," there is a lot of doubt. First of all the doubt comes using the same information you presented that this man is mentally unstable. By definition, that requires a higher level of alert from the police by virtue of the man's unstable and unpredictable behavior. Who do you think kills people in the mall, solid citizens who are mentally stable? I've also seen this man characterized as "homeless." I don't know about homeless people everywhere, and I certainly don't know about this particular homeless man, but in my town many of the homeless live under the bridge and do drugs all day. Speaking for me personally, this is not the kind of person I would trust. I do believe drug addicts can kill people when they are out of their mind and need their fix. AGAIN, I am not defending what we saw in the video. What I am doing is pointing out very obvious flaws in your presentation, and pointing out AGAIN that we do not yet have the other side of the facts, which is the point of view of the officers involved. I like to hear BOTH sides, because I think it is unfair to judge after hearing only one side. There are no flaws in my presentation just additional perspectives, AKA options, AKA 'food for thought'. They were not and are not the only options, just what I feel need to be included in the solution set. There have been homeowners in violent neighborhoods that feel so threatened that they are on a hair trigger defense posture. Some have acted on their paranoia with lethal force and have been convicted of various crimes for conducting what they genuinely felt was an objective and reasonable response to the perils they faced. The racial profiling issue takes this approach whereby ethnicities feel that their racial presentation automatically puts police at a greater bias for criminal scrutiny. These things are certainly true at least some of the time.

Freddy Mercury............ AIDS is a really miserable way to die......................

http://news.yahoo.com/alabama-police-officer-charged-assaulting-indian-man-062639725.html

"Objective reasonableness" versus mass paranoia. Paranoia is a state of irrational fear that has become anchored in the psyche. Mass paranoia is the state where a group collectively suffers from an unreasonable excess of fear. While there is no question that police work in a milieux of confrontation they need to have genuine and clear understanding of their own abilities to manage peril and do the least harm. More and more what the public is witnessing is a loss of this clarity of judgment. Instead of deploying training and tactics and 'thinking' threats to a more peaceful resolution guns get drawn and utilized. So - are the police simply more lax knowing that the courts are lax and will accept a broad definition of peril exonerating even outrageous conduct? Or - are the police genuinely paranoid? Have they psychologically adapted their own mindset to see life threatening situations in the mildest of conflicts? Are they in some way suffering from some degree of mass insanity? Are some departments suffering from institutional psychosis? Have they lost any realistic sense of objectivity and replaced it with rote overreaction? The blue advocates on this thread express this paranoia suggesting that every traffic stop could be Bonnie and Clyde......... so treat them ALL as if they will be Bonnie and Clyde. Yet the statistics do not support this level of paranoia and thus do not support the unwarranted hyper paranoid posturing. Bonnie and Clyde events are extremely rare relatively speaking. Is there any doubt that 4 trained police officers could not have subdued this 45 y/o man without too much trouble or harm to themselves? A lethal hail of bullets is too often the quick and easy cure-all for any confrontation. Police are hired to 'police' and not to determine guilt, define and execute the penalty.

Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper died in the same plane crash. Ricky Nelson also died in a plane crash.

The back story: The guy was throwing rocks at moving cars at a major intersection. The police arrived and they did get into a physical altercation with the man who broke free. They tried a taser but failed to get activation. They guy then started throwing rocks (or dirt clods) at the police and hit at least one of them. The man then turned and simply trotted or walked away, across this major intersection. He had another rock in his hand. The police then opened fire while he was still in the street. The video shows the rest. All the while the police were verbally commanding him to halt and drop, etc. The man turned and the 3 officers drilled the guy and that was that. I dunno. Seems like one man against several trained officers should not have gotten that far out of control.

It was a homeless guy known to have mental deficits. This is really a senseless shooting.

Um, well............ Not only have I purchased new music introduced to me through my free Pandora many of my friends have done the same. The industry has a perfect introduction medium in a Pandora service. For me Pandora replaced digital cable radio that spoon fed you genres they chose and that were at least as repetitive and not at all for free. I have Pandora stations developed around Johnny Lytle and Wes Montgomery. I have a Bossa Nova channel and baroque. Sorry if their business model is too successful. Egads - after watching 90 seconds of the Grammies and getting violently ill methinx the music industry has lots of room for improvement. Don't worry be happy.

Several officers in Pasco, Wa. shot and killed a suspect armed with 'rocks'. Hope the link works. http://news.yahoo.com/police-washington-state-fatally-shoot-man-threw-rocks-064717719.html

Something a little lighter in subject than some of the recent threads. http://www.chonday.com/Videos/cholrecorght3

This is why gasoline has become so cheap lately. Worldwide consumption has plummeted and there is a supply glut. Economic indicators in major manufacturing countries like Japan and Germany are not good. Here in America the new credit bubble in in the automotive sector where car loans have been handed out to anyone able to fog a mirror. Americans are advised that the economy is 'rebounding' and they look around and wonder 'where'? As for the ACA.......... I had a regular M.D. visit last fall. 15 minutes at most. Just the visit was over $400 bucks. My part was close to $200. Just the facts....... and things are not very rosy and our politicians have a habit of massaging numbers to make them appear nifty.

What's most intriguing is that there are bloodbath video games so realistic that it makes these play guns look like toys. It is not just guns. Now you can opt for chains saws and any number of truly grisly death dealing devices and it is no bloodless death you get to observe. Your victims get to beg for their lives. They scream. They squirt and get disemboweled. But - these are not supposed to have any untoward psyche affects on our youth.

Possible according to whom? In essence, that means killing one's self. Short of that, every man's decision is another man's destruction. "Humanity" has no means of acting in unison. None. So, is Pete's 2500 square foot home way too big or way too small? There's no answer. Is Sally's thermostat set at 70F too high? Says who? Is a 5,000 pound car too heavy? Says who? The idea that we would let a "rock in space" dictate either mass or individual human behavior must be challenged for sensibility. It makes no sense. If the earth collapses on a generation of yet unborn souls 10,000 years from now, or 100,000 years from now, or a million years from now, makes no logical difference to anyone alive today. If one thinks it does, then one should kill themself and be done with it. What I saw in my bad dream was the lack of logic in environmentalism. it took me a while, but eventually it was as clear as a bell. This Rock is not a God, or an intelligence, or even a spirit. It has no means of judgement. It can make no demands on people or trees or birds. It can not require service. It has no consciousness. It's not a spaceship. It is not a Mother or Father to be taken care of and coddled at the expensive of living souls. It is working it's own way entropy to destruction and nothing that humans or whales, or redwoods or bears can do will change that. Entropy IS. If we accept that there is a continuum with the worst most blatant pollution towards one side and tree hugging micro manipulators identifying the other......... somewhere along the way is just plain logical and practical eco-management. Not suggesting anything radical.

Suffice it to say that humanity should be the best stewards of this planet as possible. Can biologic fauna alter the physical composition and activity on a planet? Yes it can and it has happened here on earth. The rise of photosynthetic plants brought oxygen to the earth and repurposed carbon dioxide levels capturing and holding the gas in a variety of forms. So it can happen. It has happened. Let's assume humanity has altered our planet. Assume the worst if you want to. Is there anyway humanity can quickly correct the mistake? Probably not and most certainly not if on a few major countries make the effort. Assume humanity has not altered the planet. Assume the least if you want to. This is no reason to condone mismanaging the earths resources as we now understand them. So...... the argument is a little moot. All humanity should do now is be the best stewards of the planet as possible. And we can be prepared. If science suggests that we've got more extreme weather headed our way....... plan on it. If the worst predictions are true and we lose the great oceanic currents due to a massive influx of fresh water........ then humanity evolves to survive or not....... just like we've done up until now. Personally I do not accept the notion that America needs to shoot itself in the foot in any massive endeavor to reverse any alterations in the weather. It simply would not work. If global warming is true....... it is too little, too late. If not then it is not necessary. All humanity should do is be the best stewards of this here planet.

What a 'crack' UP.

Went on a date last night with a woman who lost a son in Afghanistan. He was a sniper. No good or bad commentary about this movie. We just need to keep in mind that there are many who serve in this capacity and do not receive a great deal of recognition.

Heat mirages are related to differences in temperatures and the refractive plain they are viewed at. In the desert on a hot day the earth is hotter than the atmosphere so that the sky looked upon at low angles refracts and distorts the horizon line and makes it appear to shimmer as though it was water. Often the sunset we watch shows a mirage sun that is already disappeared over the horizon but refracts through the atmosphere at low angles. I suspect that the temp outdoors was colder and this came through the glass of the window. There was a temp mirage to be seen at low angles above your hot tube array. The mirage would disappear as you stood up and looked downward on the same circumstance.

Bet the lights in his house don't work very well.

We are thinking similarly, except for this phrase right here. We cannot say that all non-immunized people will be afflicted, nor can we say that all immunized people are never afflicted. The whole thing has to do with "odds" and taking chances to some extent. There is a fallacy to this logic. It is called 'herd immunity'. When a certain proportion of a community is immunized the entire community realizes a greater degree of protection as the diseases simply cannot vector easily amongst the group. Conversely, when too many are not immune the disease can transmit more easily and through frequency of occurrence, will also mutate more frequently. Not only will more people get exposed but they will eventually all lose their immunity to new variants of the same pathogens. Immunization succeeds better if most of a population has immunity and remains immune. That is how major pathogens get entirely eradicated. If the confounding variable is our inherent mortality I see no reason to accelerate the process unnecessarily and no reason to imperil your own children. Consider also that you're not just risking death. Defense mechanisms in kids are well known to overreact. They tend get high temperatures quickly. Febrile seizures will leave your child retarded for life or worse. Do you really want to risk polio resurgence and so many other illnesses? As I said........... the health advantages we gain as a community through vaccination should not ever be casually set aside.

The paper here is a broad and unscientific narrative. It is not a study nor is it a formal literature review of any valid studies on vaccinations or their complications. These issues have been previously raised and they have been extensively studied and debunked. Currently there is a measles outbreak threatening So. California. Measles is highly contagious and can be deadly or debilitating. In the last several years Calif has allowed parents to sidestep state laws and enroll children unvaccinated into public schools with a simple waiver. Some elementary schools have 30% of the student body unprotected from measles and other easily preventible ID's. You can bet this will get remedied real fast. Ever watch a child die from a viral infection? Ever witness what that does to the parents and the family? Immunizations very safely protect the population from many horrific illnesses. Advocating against such an effective program had better be profoundly well anchored in solid irrefutable scientific proofs. Reference the recent Ebola outbreak if you need any guide to the terrors of virulence and deadly ailments. There are 5 states that legally allow parents to rely solely upon prayer as a valid medical treatment for their children. In Idaho one religious sect has applied this treatment liberally. In 'Peaceful Valley' near Boise the local cemetery is comprised of 25% children, a most grisly and telling statistic in a world where modern medicine keeps child mortality at much lower numbers. There are some things where 'wing and a prayer' do not belong. The same can be said for guesswork. Immunize your children and please put an end to this unfounded speculative application of fear mongering voodoo medicine. If it cannot be scientifically proven it offers NO proof. http://www.kboi2.com/news/local/Fatal-Faith-Idaho-laws-protect-faith-healing-even-when-children-die-233374791.html

You're right, I think about boobies yet most pictures are frowned upon. I don't necessarily believe that thinking is frowned upon, it's specific topics (politics, guns etc) that are limited. Heck, people get fired up over dogs and cats. These particular topics are sure to raise temperatures among forum members and it quickly becomes personal. Personal attacks are what should be limited and certain topics are not discussed in an effort to minimize such attacks. Avoid the topic, avoid the potential attack. When any society shelters or limits exposure to contrary opinions it is diminished and can be directed by how those limits are utilized. I do realize the audio foundations of these forums and this website. But the hobby attracts a wide breadth of enthusiasts and thus offers a wide breadth of opinions. There are riches here being held in sway. If controversies were not emotional they'd not be controversial. Debates always have 2 sides......... and always will. Keeping debates civil should be the moderators chore. Removing access to debate removes vitality. The pulse of this place is weaker as we all watch the real world turn outside of its insulated discourse. There is a lot we should be discussing and we have a lot of people here with valid perspectives. As I said to Chad long ago......... treating this place like a 5th grade schoolyard will keep the forums elementary.