Yeah, man, I saw him the other day. We were just a couple of bros getting some beers, bro. Except he brought a vat of protein powder. I thought that was weird.

I just had a ice coffee at Starbucks. It was nice, but definitely worth the amount of money. I'll just stick to drinking coffee at home.

I thought ObamaCare was giving Americans their own NHS, but listening to people on the radio today it sounds like it's not very popular and will cost ordinary workers a lot of money.

Why can't the US have a free NHS like here? Though ours is under increasing pressure and is under threat of Privatization, thanks to meddling politicians.

Pumpkin spice Starbucks is the best... if I want fancy coffee though, I usually go to a local coffee shop. Much more inexpensive.

I go to Starbucks only because I can use my meal points there. They do have good croissants, but then again I've never really had a bad croissant, so it's not really a lot of points in their favor.

Obamacare is the pinnacle for all of our governmental problems right now with the left blindly following it cause that what Obama wants and the rigbt vehemently opposing it becaue well it's a democratic plan (and not a very good one either). Healthcare in the USA is worth way to damn much money for anyone to just go changing it and that's what the real problem is, that and our government is run by shit heads. For people like me who don't pay for our health insurance Obamacare could be disastrous as well by giving companies the option to tell us to get bent and find our own insurance.

Your government sounds as disasterous as the ones we get, makes me wonder what's going on.This day and age everyone should be able to walk in a hospital and get treated, paid out of our taxes. Trouble here is hospitals pay hugely inflated prices even for the most basic things. The last gov made some scheme where basically changing a lightbulb could cost hundreds.

Ever wanted to see Hulk Hogan in a thong on a wrecking ball? You sure do!

Wow. He really did lose a lot in the divorce, didn't he?

We don't have an NHS because conservatives here think that health care should only be available to those who can afford it. If you're uninsured, it's either because a) you're an idiot who chooses not to have coverage or b) you're poor because you're stupid and/or lazy and thus you don't deserve health care. It boils down very neatly to people who are wealthy coming up with excuses to not have any of their hard-earned/hard-inherited wealth be redistributed for the purpose of healthcare for other people.

Don't forget that conservatives here think poor people are set for life living off welfare.

Including his hair.

I didn't think people in the US got much welfare support, and had to work for what little you get?
Our benefits system was set up after the war using American money, but it has been really abused, and now the whole system's in jeapardy.

Big business, that's who they all represent

What does everyone think of this new "work for the dole" system that is to be implemented in the UK next year? The gist: if you've been unemployed for over 3 years, you will be doing over 30 hours of work per week or else you're not getting your £60. The work is community service, in other words, the same jobs we give to criminals as punishment.

Has anyone noticed the little "anti-feminist" thing going on lately? I mean these people think that feminists are ruining mens lives by demanding more then equal right has to be the most far-fetched thing I've ever seen. Do these humans actually exist in the real world or is this some sort of internet phenomenon?

There's been a huge surge in mens' rights activism in recent times. Mens' rights activism is defined as 17 year old basement-dwelling, fedora-wearing neckbeards bitching on reddit about how men have it so tough these days because of rampant feminism as a proxy for the fact that no one would date their sorry asses.

They also play a lot of GTA, apparently.

Those friend-zoning bitches aren't enlightened atheists and instead always go for christfag douches and leaving nice guys like me single. At least rainbow dash understands me.

RE: NHS in America

The problem isn't the wealthy or conservatives, it's the cost of medical care in the US. Look at US procedural cost compared to other countries... and the insurance system in America only empowers the cost of healthcare to remain astronomically high.

Wild generalizations aside, saying there isn't free healthcare because rich conservatives don't want there to be is pretty silly and comes off sounding just as ignorant as when conservatives say liberals are a bunch of socialists who want them to pay for everything for them. We don't have free healthcare because there is a HUGE industry that is funded by it NOT being free. Do you think doctors want their exceptionally high pay to be vastly reduced for doing the same job? Do you think health insurance companies want all that revenue from premiums to go away? No.

Granted I don't really care enough about politics to get into the nitty gritty of this shit but all of that seems like the pretty obvious conclusion to draw on why going to the doctor isn't free.

Everyone plays a lot of GTA these days.

HAhahahah gave me a chuckle.

I don't think I will ever play the new GTA. I'm doing fine playing my emulator =[D

Well sure, that's part of it. We have this wonderful system of middlemen (i.e. insurance companies) here that run health care as a business. The lobbies for these industries are no doubt powerful and do a damn good job of ensuring that the industry not only never goes away, but thrives.

As for health care costs, that's one of the whole debate's great ironies; those who are so vehemently against a truly nationalized health care system cite the unethicality of wealth redistribution as their primary reason for opposing such a system, yet even privatized insurance is essentially exactly the same thing. As you said, actual health care costs are astronomically high, to the point where no one but the super rich could actually afford something like an emergency room visit, surgery and lengthy hospital stay out of pocket. Those who have insurance have it precisely because they know that it's likely they won't be able to pay up-front medical costs should they arise, so they sign a contract where they pay into a system of wealth redistribution (with the insurance company's markups as some juicy profit, no less) willingly by even having insurance at all.

For a reasonably intelligent individual I am a complete idiot sometimes. I was just walking down the street and I saw this car drive by that had written on the side "Blind Cleaning Experts" and my first thought was "How the hell can they be cleaning experts if they are blind?!"

And why are they driving?!?!

Not the best name for a company...

On Obamacare, I think one thing that we tend to forget in our smaller/less populated first world countries is that America is just such a different beast to England/Australia/Luxembourg/Finland etc. A system that works great for 4 million people in a scandinavian democratic socialist state is not going to work for a huge desert island with 22 million people, which will not work for a small, super crowded island slightly west of Mainland Europe, and in turn their system is not going to work for a highly capitalist, huge-ass country of 300 million people, which in turn would not work for India, and so on. It strikes me that national health care should really be a basic human right but I don't doubt that it'd be fucken hard to introduce especially in this day and age.

It can't be that hard a system to get around with anyway, really? Get a canadian citizenship or go to mexico to get your arm plastered up when you break it, etc.

Yeah, we have more idiots than Australia has people. We have more wealth and could financially support it if we didn't allow the ultra-rich to buy politicians to protect their piles of gold coins that they dive into Scrooge McDuck style.

I'm joking.

They don't dive into piles of coins, they sell that gold as Obama-proof currency to gullible fools through commercials on Fox News, because they're afraid of the economic havoc wreaked by the great Antichrist Obama 666/2012.

I don't think that, from a purely financial and logistic perspective, welfare is significantly harder to implement in the US than in any other first world industrial nation. Lawmakers just didn't have much incentive to do so yet. I imagine this is due to a historical shortcoming regarding worker's organization (and also due to the two party system which discourages radical reformism?). Basically I'm sayin that it's more a matter of there being the will to change something than anything else. The socioeconomic conditions are definitely already given.

As far as the implementation of a universal care system goes I would rather see my taxes go up a bit than see people who need help not getting it and I think many people feel this way too. On that same token thougb I don't feel it's right for people like me to have our free insurance be jeopardized, there's a middle ground in there somewhere and it's the politics of this country that make shit go awry. Which brings me to my next point (also mostly @ inhumanist's post) I don't feel that the people of our country lack the will to change I feel it's more that change seems to encounter way to much opposition by political fat cats. People want things to be different but every time we try we get squashed by rich ass holes and their billions. The thing I find funniest is that the politicians make out lime fucking thieves (and they are) but don't want to lift a finger to help the little guy.



Don't feel bad I had to read this more times t han I care to admit before I got it...

EDIT: double post. Fuck my mouse I need another one.

So my kid truly enjoys Hevisaurus, you know? That Heavy Metal band from Finland where they all dress up like dinosaurs.
He's headbanging and doing the air guitar while laughing his ass off. He is so fucking amused by this band And if only I had learnt finnish...

Awesome! I know OpsiusCato got their CDs from Napero and his kid loves it. If you didn't know, the staff of Metal Archives is, among many other things, an international distribution network for Hevisaurus.

For one little moment I could picture Napero dressed like Riffi Raffi, and even Morrigan dressed like Milli Pilli...

ObamaCare clearly doesn't protect the people it's supposed to. Small businesses are completely fucked, and the big conglomerates and going, "well, everybody is part time, now!"

"I was getting 35 hours, but my company doesn't want to pay my health insurance anymore under the new ObamaCare law, so they dropped me* down to 28 hours. Thanks, Obama!"

*Spelling error.

That kind of thing has been going on forever. I worked at Blockbuster from 2004 - 2006 and keeping people just under full-time hours was standard practice in order to deny benefits to as much of the staff as possible.

Well, it's more prevalent and specific now for those who were getting part time benefits at 28-32 hours, and aren't full time. There were just reports of The Home Depot cutting like 20,000 part time insurance coverage plus a handful of their hours weekly, and from what I read, that just happened recently. That's especially shitty.

Haha! That's awesome. A few days ago, I saw a van from a company called The Blind Man. On the back of the van was a decal saying "you are now passing a blind man!" Very clever.


Man, that's lame, but that kind of thing happens everywhere in the world, so it's not unique to Americans.

Yes, that's what I meant. It's the lawmakers who lack the will to push social reform, and the working masses who need those reforms have too little influence on them, due to the reasons I mentioned.
Here in Germany many a social reform was actually implemented in the late 19th century under imperial rule because working class organization was fairly advanced and a force for the ruling class to fear.

Well it's high time we had a revolution of sorts around these parts. Another problem I've noticed is the whole 'you are replaceable' mentality the corporate America drills into people. As soon as some one starts talking about change they magically get fired or something. It usually doesn't even get that far though countless people live in fear of loosing their jobs, hours, benefits, etc. to far less qualified people who can be hired at a fraction of the cost, and this is how corporations keep you in line. Seems like they took Grand Moff Tarkin to heart...

Going to a Magic Hat tasting thing today... should be fun. Got a seasonal sampler last night, very excited for it.