Politics: Onward from New Hampshire

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by bilmore
A Clinton advisor is saying that Clarke shot down chances to get at OBL? (I add the ? because it's NewsMax. I don't know about NewsMax.)


* * *
"Clinton administration diplomatic troubleshooter Mansoor Ijaz'

* * *

You are wise to be a little sceptical, because (I think) NewsMax is loony fringe -- Clinton dealing cocaine -- right wing.

We'll have to see how/if this plays out. Who is this "Ijaz" cat ? Makes himself sound like James Bond crossed with Lawrence of Arabia. Since he'd negotiated all these deals, why didn't he just go to Sudan and take care of business?

On the Clinton "admission" -- Ok, if so, WTF could the U.S. have done with bin Laden in 1996? Perhaps in hindsight we "should" have agreed to take him into custody (if Sudan could have delivered him), and then dropped him out of a plane over the Atlantic, but we as a nation have decided as a general rule not to operate that way.

S_A_M

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
Ah, memories. The labels you've been mentioning got traded back and forth among a small group of regional brewers that eventually morphed into enormous holding companies that drove many of the labels into the ground.

Many of them got driven into the ground first, and then were bought by holding companies that treated them as cash cows, spending nothing on marketing and selling to people with loyalties to those brands.

[Bad_Rich_Chic]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
... Lowenbrau ...

Damn you all, I now have that jingle stuck in my head.

BR("so tonight (tonight), let it be Lowenbrau" - now you can all suffer with me)C

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
Many of them got driven into the ground first, and then were bought by holding companies that treated them as cash cows, spending nothing on marketing and selling to people with loyalties to those brands.

*sniff* Celis Pale Bock. Murdered by Miller Brewing Company, rescued by some brewry in Michigan. They're only selling it to Texans, because we're the only ones that know about it, and they don't want to market it.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
That is, the beer was so bad that a butt only slightly lowered the taste, and did not clearly stand out as something wrong. I can't remember the name of it thought.

That would be Fox Deluxe. 3 cases for six dollars. The butts were their version of the worm in tequila bottles.

[Say_hello_for_me]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man

On the Clinton "admission" -- Ok, if so, WTF could the U.S. have done with bin Laden in 1996? Perhaps in hindsight we "should" have agreed to take him into custody (if Sudan could have delivered him), and then dropped him out of a plane over the Atlantic, but we as a nation have decided as a general rule not to operate that way.

S_A_M

For a Secret Agent Man, you seem to be farther behind the times than Austin Powers. Even the assassination ban only applied to, uhm, foreign leaders, right?

And who is this "we as a nation"? I hope you don't think peanut-boy, google-boy, Bubba and 3G reflect the choice of the nation. In this regard, Atticus and 3G indicated that they don't believe in executing domestic threats under at least some circumstances, or at least they don't believe that Chile's not-necessarily-legitimate government should have been able to do so. However, I can't imagine that there are really any prohibitions against the U.S. government executing known foreign threats. Were there?

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by bilmore
That would be Fox Deluxe. 3 cases for six dollars. The butts were their version of the worm in tequila bottles.

Sounds bad, although that was back when $6.00 was $6.00?

Anyone else recall when grocery stores started carrying "generic" products -- that fine brand known as BEER (white label, large black letters) should not be omitted from our discussion.

S_A_M

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
Sounds bad, although that was back when $6.00 was $6.00?

Back then, six dollars was SIX DOLLARS!!.

Anyone else recall when grocery stores started carrying "generic" products -- that fine brand known as BEER (white label, large black letters) should not be omitted from our discussion.

Don't laugh. I've had good luck recently with bottles of Cheap Red Wine.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
Depends on the hospital. I went back and checked again, because it was bothering me, and the stark exception is more likely to be in 42 C.F.R. section 411.357 (m) (medical staff incentives). There are a lot of hospitals in the Texas Medical Center that only provide meals to residents and medical staff members with Medical Director appointments.

TMC is a group of teaching hospitals? If so and if they do a significant amount of indigent care, that wouldn't surprise me that they don't have money to spend on free food. But I don't think they are deterred by the laws. I think they are deterred by their budgets. If the TMC includes any for-profit hospitals that don't have a significant indigent care burden to absorb, I bet they give free food in the doctor's lounge.

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
Your comments regarding education and lifestyle as not being part of health care. Public health, in part, is about developing programs to assist people in changing lifestyle. From simple things like washing hands and brushing teeth, to more complex nutrition education.

Defining what activities qualify as the healthcare system doesn't mean someone doesn't know about public health. If you define healthcare to include programs educating people about washing your hands to prevent viral spread, then school teachers are part of the healthcare system. If we have a disagreement on this, it is definitional in nature.

My point in my prior post was in regards to HMOs because I was responding to what you were talking about in your post regarding HMOs. I read your post as saying that the theory behind the HMOs was a good theory and that it was only in practice that they failed (because of some unspecified reasons). My point was that it was not just that they failed in practice, they failed in theory, too, because ultimately these lifestyle choices are not within a doctor's control. The HMO model is based on providing financial incentives to healthcare providers to prevent illness. This theory was proposed to counter supposed financial incentives to treat disease but not to prevent disease. I say supposed because this sort of thinking fails to take into account the effects of the tort system.

If you believe that you can institute public health programs to influence lifestyle choices, I don't dispute that public health programs can help some. However, it is still up to the patient ultimately and many of the factors that influence people to abuse their bodies are not within the control of healthcare providers. I dispute that the HMO theory is a good one because it is based on this assumption that the healthcare provider is capable of influencing the patient to the degree necessary to save money by preventing disease. Human nature being what human nature is, the doctor's ability to do that is very limited.

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
I agree, and I think that MSAs could be promising. I think, though, that there need to be some minimum, perhaps rationed, safety nets put in place outside of the MSA that would help in the event that there is not enough in the MSA to cover an otherwise treatable disease or condition.

You could have a system in which people who didn't have the money to fund the MSA got vouchers from the government. A non-employer based MSA program, properly structured in terms of discretionary/non-discretionary care/ patient contribution, with vouchers to help low-income people would help to corrrect some of the market failures in our current system. I would also structure Medicare as an MSA with means testing. That would stop your grandma from overutilizing healthcare resources.

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Say_hello_for_me
For a Secret Agent Man, you seem to be farther behind the times than Austin Powers. Even the assassination ban only applied to, uhm, foreign leaders, right?

And who is this "we as a nation"? I hope you don't think peanut-boy, google-boy, Bubba and 3G reflect the choice of the nation. In this regard, Atticus and 3G indicated that they don't believe in executing domestic threats under at least some circumstances, or at least they don't believe that Chile's not-necessarily-legitimate government should have been able to do so. However, I can't imagine that there are really any prohibitions against the U.S. government executing known foreign threats. Were there?

Behave! I did say "generally".

Say what you will, and times have changed, but those two folks were President of the U.S. for 12 years. I think that position(were it possible to frame it neutrally and as applied to a generic "teorrist" figure well prior to 9/11) would achieve support from a substantial bunch of Americans.


[Dream Sequence:]

"Hey Pres. Bush I -- we got this bearded Islamic dude over here -- and he says he don't like the U.S. none. And he's got a bunch of money, and some friends with guns, and he says everyone should go kick your ass, and that he's gonna do it. But he ain't done nothing to you yet."

"Well, Jimbo. I say we track him down and put a bullet in his head -- wouldn't be prudent to take any chances. We've got guys who do that, don't we??"

You think?

S_A_M

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally posted by bilmore
Back then, six dollars was SIX DOLLARS!!.

Don't laugh. I've had good luck recently with bottles of Cheap Red Wine.

The Beer Advocate's list of Worst Beers:

http://www.beeradvocate.com/top_beers.php?id=worst

Bud Light is 21st worst. Miller Lite is nowhere to be found?

Two Bell's (yum) beers made the Top 15 for Top Beers.

http://www.beeradvocate.com/top_beers.php

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
Behave!

Is that your version of Ty calling people trolls?

[Say_hello_for_me]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
Behave! I did say "generally".

Say what you will, and times have changed, but those two folks were President of the U.S. for 12 years. I think that position(were it possible to frame it neutrally and as applied to a generic "teorrist" figure well prior to 9/11) would achieve support from a substantial bunch of Americans.


[Dream Sequence:]

"Hey Pres. Bush I -- we got this bearded Islamic dude over here -- and he says he don't like the U.S. none. And he's got a bunch of money, and some friends with guns, and he says everyone should go kick your ass, and that he's gonna do it. But he ain't done nothing to you yet."

"Well, Jimbo. I say we track him down and put a bullet in his head -- wouldn't be prudent to take any chances. We've got guys who do that, don't we??"

You think?

S_A_M

I take back what I said about Bubba. Go to CNN.com at this moment and the lead story is Cohen testifying that Bubba's problems with killing OBL weren't moral or strictly-legal. So even Bubba's buddies are disavowing your stated position. Which leaves peanut-boy, google-boy and 3G.

Hello

[The Larry Davis Experience]

Originally posted by bilmore
A Clinton advisor is saying that Clarke shot down chances to get at OBL? (I add the ? because it's NewsMax. I don't know about NewsMax.)

"Monday, March 22, 2004 10:24 p.m. EST
Ijaz: Clarke Blocked bin Laden Extradition

This Ijaz guy's 1997 Sudan story was discussed a while back on this board.

He wasn't a Clinton advisor, he was a private citizen. In addition, I recall that many doubted the Sudan ties to OBL and Ijaz's Sudan proposal was discredited once it became clear that he was working to become the middleman for Sudan's prospective oil sales to the US once they got on our good side by handing over terrorists. I don't remember reading anything about the Abu Dhabi thing though.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Say_hello_for_me
I take back what I said about Bubba. Go to CNN.com at this moment and the lead story is Cohen testifying that Bubba's problems with killing OBL weren't moral or strictly-legal. So even Bubba's buddies are disavowing your stated position. Which leaves peanut-boy, google-boy and 3G.

Hello

How is "concerns about killing civilians"not moral? Or is it not immoral to kill people as long as they are infidel? This concern would seem to be amplified if the questions about intelligence were whether OBL was actually in the place he was purported to be -- it's even more embarrassing to kill a bunch of civilians if you don't even get the guy.

But perhaps you are watching it live on CNN.com. I dont' know that my system is up to streaming video and the noise might raise eyebrows anyway.