dean

You can thank George W. for the replacement of a lot of military personal with civilian contractors

I'd distinguish between combat veterans and the rest of the military. Combat veterans deserve greater benefits than they receive now. The rest should use the military to acquire skills that they can use in civilian life and make a short "career" in the military. In the future, government employment does not guarantee retirement/health benefits after 20-30 years of service. The last time that I checked, it was a volunteer military service. That may be harsh but it will be a reality in life from now on. Preparing for your retirement falls squarely on every American's shoulders. The sooner everyone realises this, the better.

Don't feel too bad for Truman. His wife's family farm was sold in the late 1960's for a lot of money to a developer that built one of the largest malls in Kansas City, Bannister Mall (but has sat empty for the last three years;maybe, they should turn it back into a farm).

I don't have any problem with a plastic surgeon or a lasic surgeon or a dentist charging whatever they want to customers that are paying for their services out of their own pocket. For the vast majority of doctors in the part of the health care system through which they are paid either by insurance companies or the government, I do have a problem. The U.S. has a health care system where doctors are paid for performing procedures but not preventative medicine. They are paid when they conduct tests, the only reason that they do the tests is to protect their asses in case of a malpractice lawsuit. State governments control the number of insurance companies that can sell health insurance in each state, preventing insurance companies from competing inter state (and lowering insurance premiums). The idea of health insurance being tied to a job has long outlived its usefulness. I know people that can't get affordable insurance, and are put in very expensive "state medical pools," because of pre existing medical conditions. I know many people that stay at a job, particularly a government job, only for the health benefits. Why are health insurance benefits not taxable? It encourages businesses to keep its most valued employees by giving them expensive "Cadillac coverage" which isn't taxed and provides no reason for those people to not go to the emergency room for a hangnail (and run up health costs for all of us). The same goes to unions that provide the same coverage. On the other extreme are those that have no health insurance, who receive no care or crappy care under Medicaid. Or the self employed, that pay "full priced" health insurance rates. Where is the fairness of a health care system, where the rate that a person pays for health insurance is set by the type of job one has or the lack of political clout (or lobbyist) on has. Even if one is one of the "haves" in the current health care system, certainly, they are smart enough to see the current system is unsustainable. Why anyone would want to get rid of Obamacare and keep the present system is beyond me (except for seniors being scared by Doctors and insurance companies over changes in Medicare). By the way, Flash, its obvious that government doesn't extend Medicare beyond the U.S. borders because of the short term costs in doing so (and opposition from the AMA). Long term, it would be cheaper for insurance companies to pay for airline tickets to have Americans living in the U.S. to go to accredited medical centers for treatment and surgery (to say nothing about ex pats doing the same). I don't know how many senior citizens live outside of the U.S. but I'm sure that the government saves a ton of money by excluding them from using Medicare outside the U.S.

There are 55,000 people taking the MSAT each year. Of those, 35,000 apply for medical school and 17,000 are accepted as medical students at one of the 131 medical universities in the U.S. There are plans on building several more medical schools. I'm not worried about fewer students applying for medical school. I'm not advocating it, but I think that you could double the class size and still have more than enough qualified students applying for admission.

Its a paradox when you have congressional approval ratings at a all time low and the percentage of incumbents that get re-elected at at least 95%. I wonder if here is any correlation between how much money an incumbent can shake out of corporations and lobbyists that goes to their re-election campaigns and that high rate of re-election (plus, the amount of time that a member of Congress spends courting the people that give out that money?

I'd agree that the Democrats did try to ram the healthcare bill through but only after Republicans did everything to try to kill it. Their public relations campaign on "Obamacare" was much more effective than the Democrats PR, particularly after Scott Brown was elected in Massachusetts and he Democrats had to go through a convoluted process in the House and Senate to finally pass it. Obama started out on healthcare to not make the same mistakes as Clinton did in giving Congress a "take it or leave it" healthcare bill. Obviously, they left it. And them 16-17 years went by without any counter proposals by the Republicans. We all know what healthcare costs did in those years. Obama's problem was in giving up too much to the AMA, insurance companies and unions, believing that, once they signed off on officially supporting the healthcare bill, hey wouldn't still try to undermine it. The control of Congress by the Lobbyists (they are now he 4th pillar of government, taking over from the Press) is the single biggest obstacle to ending the deadlock in government. I think that everyone knows that there are serious flaws in the healthcare law. Am I willing to see Romney try to do everything possible to destroy the healthcare bill (if he became President)? At least Newt Gingrich did make some proposals on healthcare. I won't vote for anyone that just states that Obamacare is a horrible idea for americans and business and it has to go, without saying what hey would do to replace Obamacare. What we have now is broken and minor changes won't help.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/30/us/politics/30law.html?pagewanted=all An interesting read. It explains his mis-handling on how o get healthcare reform passed (just ramming it through).

I haven't had any good feelings toward the RBS since they had a major role in the timeshare that I owned in Edinburgh going bankrupt. At least its former chief executive can't use the title of knighthood. Since only crooks are stripped of knighthood, he must be a crook: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-16821650

Flash, if you are a WHT fan, you might be interested in this book; http://blogs.westword.com/showandtell/2012/01/jason-heller-taft-2012-interview.php

I'd be interested in seeing how farang-thai lawsuits of this nature have gone in the last 20 years.

I guess the answer to the question of whether Newt's "indiscretion's" would hurt his presidential campaign is no. I wouldn't count Romney out, as Newt held serve on his home turf. By the way, politifact also called the claims by the democratic party that Paul Ryan's plan on balancing the budget would end medicare as "pants on fire." So, they don't exclusively show bias to the right.

From Politifact, which has won a pulitzer for its reporting: "Medicare premiums going up due to “Obamacare� Chain e-mail gets it wrong Pants on Fire! Share this story: A chain e-mail going around warns of a Medicare premium increase, saying monthly premiums will go up from $96.40 to $247 in 2014. Blame it all on "Obamacare," the e-mail says. Here’s the full text of the copy we received: MEDICARE PREMIUM INCREASE For those of you who are on Medicare, read the article below. It's a short but important article that you probably haven't heard about in the mainstream news: The per person Medicare insurance premium will increase from the present monthly fee of $ 96.40, rising to: $104.20 in 2012; $120.20 in 2013; And $247.00 in 2014. These are provisions incorporated in the Obamacare legislation, purposely delayed so as not to 'confuse' the 2012 re-election campaigns. Send this to all seniors that you know, so they will know who's throwing them under the bus. We decided to fact-check this chain e-mail, which we soon found has been floating around the Internet in one version or another since at least 2009. As we researched, we quickly realized two important points. First, the chain e-mail’s numbers are wrong. Second, explaining Medicare premiums is pretty complicated. So let’s start with a few Medicare basics: Medicare is the government-run health insurance program for Americans over age 65. Medicare’s Part A, which all beneficiaries receive, pays for hospitalization, while Part B pays for doctor’s visits and other regular health-care services. Based on the numbers it uses for premiums, it’s clear the chain e-mail is referring to what Medicare beneficiaries pay monthly for Medicare Part B premiums. Medicare calculates those premiums each year based on several factors that change from year to year. So the e-mail’s claim to know what Medicare premiums will be in the future doesn’t hold much water. In addition to that, the chain e-mail gets existing numbers wrong. Part B premiums were $96.40 back in 2009 (likely when the e-mail was first written). In 2011, the official monthly premium is $115.40. And as we were working on this report, the 2012 numbers were formally announced. The premium is $99.90 for 2012, not the $104.20 that the e-mail predicted. Also, "Obamacare" -- formally known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act -- didn’t make changes to the way that the official monthly rate for Medicare Part B premiums is calculated. There is some fine print here, though, and quite a bit of it. Most Medicare beneficiaries in 2011 still paid the 2009 amount, thanks to rules that say Medicare premiums cannot go up for existing beneficiaries if Social Security payments don’t go up. (This is known as the "hold harmless" provision.) Social Security payments did not go up in 2010 or 2011 because there was no cost-of-living increase due to a lack of inflation. On Oct. 19, the federal government announced there would be a cost-of-living, or COLA, increase in 2012. So even though the official Medicare rate dropped for 2012, most Medicare beneficiaries will see a small increase in rates, from the 2009 rate of $96.40 to the 2012 rate of $99.90. On the other end of the spectrum, some high-earning retirees pay more than the standard monthly premium. In 2011, beneficiaries who report income of more than $85,000 pay higher rates, all the way up to $369.10 for a person with income above $214,000 a year, or couples with income above $428,000. (See this chart for more details.) And the health care law does make changes to these rules affecting high earners -- it stops indexing the income limits for inflation through 2019, said Gail Wilensky, who ran the Medicare program under President George H.W. Bush in the early 1990s. It means that "more people will hit the threshold that substantially reduces the subsidy received," Wilensky said, and it was not widely noted when the law passed. Here, we should explain a bit more about how basic Medicare premiums are calculated. It’s required by law that Medicare Part B beneficiaries contribute to the cost of their health care via premiums. Right now, the contributions are required to be about 25 percent of total costs. So every year, Medicare figures out what that 25 percent will probably be and then sets rates to meet that target. It’s surprising that the official rate is going down for 2012, given recent trends on escalating health care costs -- U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius called it "pretty remarkable" in a conference call on Oct. 27, 2011, announcing the changes. Medicare administrator Donald Berwick said the low premiums were due to two changes. First, because of Social Security going up, more people will be eligible to pay the official rate, rather than remaining at an older rate due to the "hold harmless" provision. So increasing costs will be shared among a larger pool of beneficiaries. Second, he said that health care spending was growing more slowly than projected. (He credited that to increased emphasis on prevention and effective treatments.) Our ruling The chain e-mail claimed that Medicare Part B premiums would increase dramatically in future years because of the health care law supported by President Barack Obama. We couldn’t find evidence to support the e-mail’s numbers. And in fact, most Medicare beneficiaries will only pay $3.50 more a month in 2012. The e-mail’s projection for 2014 seems entirely fabricated. The health care law leaves in place the long-established methods for calculating Medicare Part B premiums. The chain e-mail makes the additional unproved claim that its allegations -- which are false anyway -- were accomplished nefariously and delayed for political purposes. We rate its claims Pants on Fire."

I'll be happy to visit him at Ft. Leavenworth, as its about 20 miles away from where I live. Do you think he smokes or likes cakes (with hacksaws inside)?

Ferraro couldn't have been the stalwart liberal everyone imagined in 1984. She had been a paid contributor on Fox News for years and tonight, Fox will do an hour tribute to her; Fox News to offer Geraldine Ferraro special Sunday Greta Van Susteren will host “Geraldine Ferraro: A Celebration of Life†at 10 p.m. Sunday on Fox News Channel. Ferraro died today at age 75. The former New York congresswoman had been Walter Mondale’s running mate in 1984 on the Democrat presidential ticket. She had been a Fox News contributor since 1999. In comments today on Fox News, Van Susteren said, “Geraldine was extraordinary.†Van Susteren stressed that Ferraro cared passionately about women and was a huge trailblazer for women as the first female vice-presidential candidate on a major ticket. The host of “On the Record†said she got to know Ferraro through the years. Van Susteren reminded viewers that Ferraro had supported Hillary Clinton’s run for the presidency in 2008, and that Ferraro was proud when Sarah Palin was named John McCain’s running mate. As “a very strong Democrat,†Ferraro didn’t agree with Palin on the issues, though, Van Susteren added. “She had very, very strong convictions,†Van Susteren said in remembering Ferraro. “She was tough as could be.â€

I believe that Authur Guinness signed a 1,000 year lease on the Guiness property in 1759. Not a bad decision.