Wabash82

What? The abuse of power allegation in the impeachment articles concerns Trump's effort to get the Ukranians to "announce" that they were investigating Joe Biden. How was that effort a "response" to anything in the Mueller investigation? Trump also did press his cockimamie "it was really Ukraine who hacked the Dems email server!" thing with the Ukranians President, which is a tinfoil hat theory that I guess you could say he has latched onto in "response" to the Mueller investigation. But that tragic sign of his basic ignorance of the modern world (the guy apparently actually thinks modern cloud email servers are like a single "black box" hard drive that someone can physically take and hide in another country) is not the subject of the abuse of power article of impeachment.

That is cynically selective quoting to change the meaning. The gist of her statement was the matters that are subject of the impeachment articles arose out of events -- the Russian interference in the 2016 election -- that were uncovered in an investigation that began 2-1/2 years ago. Here is the full quote: "This has been a couple of years – two and a half – since the initial investigation of the U.S. – of the Russian involvement in America’s election, which started much of this and led to other things."

The Purdue student was trying to change the educational institution he attends. That is what you claimed you had never questioned a student having the "right" to do. Now you want to draw lines based on whether you think the proposed change is important or serious enough? That doesn't sound like much of a "right", if exercising it subject to the whim of Mr. Muda....

I'd say that position -- individual doesn't have right to try and change their educational institution through their words and actions -- was the implication of your comment in the recent thread about Mitch Daniels' and diversity at Purdue. I believe your remark was something to the effect that the president of the black student Union who was calling Daniels out for his comment should just focus on his studies.

Bob, what's the situation in Indiana these days with the "infliction of mental harm" -type torts? It's not an area of law I've had reason to keep up on, but I do seem to recall that our courts were consistently chipping away at some of the limits related to needing a contemporaneous or related physical harm. Is there room for a lawyer to make a good faith argument that the mental trauma and fear from learning you were operated on with "unclean" instruments is itself a recognizable (compensible) injury? I am thinking of the colonoscopy patient who has just learned that the scope that was stuck way up in his nether regions was not sterilized after being way up the hinie of some other patient before him. That would sure make me "sick"!

Were his lips moving?

A 19th century time traveler would undoubtedly find many other things in the modern U.S. to be odd -- the majority of the population living in urban settings; large numbers of women working outside the home; most families having less than three children; beer usually served cold, etc. "Odd" in this context just means different, not a value judgment. (Except for the beer thing - warm beer sucks.)

I loved the "dis" response from IBM (the presumed owners of the "supercomputer" mentioned in Google's press release): IBM pooh-poohed the 10,000 years number and said that, with unlimited access to disc space, their supercomputer could do the computation in just "two and a half days." Two and a half days. To do a computation that Google's computer did in 3 minutes. Atta boy, Watson, you really showed 'em.

Were the services at a Walmart? I mean, where else is there Christmas music in October?!

Muda, how did I know you'd be the kind of guy who orders "off menu" at a McDonald's! If you want it "your way" go to a goll darn French restaurant or a BK, and quit clogging up the line between me and that Big Mac I'm craving.

I'll check with SF for the details, but this doctor apparently must have known something about the Clintons, the Bidens and the Ukraine.....

The irony of Howard's post accusing the Dems of conspiracy theorizing following right on the heels of SF's post with this loony tunes conspiracy theory about "western intelligence agencies" all conspiring against Trump (Because ... why? He's a friend of the Russians? Because the Italians all love Hillary Clinton?) is just too funny to ignore.....

The whole "poor doctors will make less money" argument is odd from you, Muda, since you traditionally have argued for market-based approaches that, if they succeeded, would presumably have a similar affect on average income for doctors. (For the same market-based reasons that doctors made significantly lower incomes before employer-based group health insurance came along.) With regard to the smokers getting lung cancer thing: if have group health insurance through your employer, you are already subject to that exact sort of cost shifting arrangement now. While insurers can and will impose premium surcharges on smokers in the group pool, those surcharged do not offset the additional actuarially-determined cost of having those people in the pool, and they this spread that cost to everyone else in the pool. Even uninsured smokers who contract lung cancer cost you money under our current system, because they still get treated under hospital "charity" programs or state emergency medical cost plans, and those charges are eventually "shared" with you via higher taxes, and higher overall medical costs at the hospitals. The moralistic aspects of this are interesting to hear from you as well. While slippery slope arguments are often illogical, I can't imagine you have absolutely no vices or habits (eating or otherwise) that are not associated in some degree with some negative health consequences. Yet you foist the potential cost of your vice or habit on others in your group health coverage pool. Why should they have to carry part of the risk of your poor decision-making?

Real world circumstances suggest otherwise, as the number of physicians per capita in the U.S. and in Canada currently is almost identical. The per capita number of physicians should be much lower in Canada's "socialist" system, per your logic.

Fixed that for you....