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[GreatJustice]

The real question is whether more people fap to the shower sex scene, or the equipment loadout.

Anyhow, has anyone seen the new horror add about Canadian healthcare? It basically says that someone with a benign tumor was evaluated in Canada, found to have a condition that wasn't immediately dangerous, and put on a waiting list for surgery. Then she went to the U.S. and, because she had money, had it operated on immediately. They never mention how much money that surgery cost her, or that if she didn't have money in the U.S. that she would have had to wait twice as long than in Canada.

Is Canadian healthcare perfect? Certainly not. But it's a little rude to harp on them for not having a two-tier health system when they've fought tooth and nail not to.

It's a bit more complicated than that. On one hand, a lot of the time you do get situations where non-immediate threats are shoved months away, become immediate threats, and result in death. You also have situations where people with serious conditions/problems are let into the waiting room (having not been clever enough to go for the ambulance immediately), are forced to wait, and die. However, those situations (at least the second kind) aren't terribly common; the two hospitals I've lived near that had it happen went into a panic and increased admittance speed by quite a lot. On the other, however, the drugs are usually cheaper and care in general is less expensive, largely because in the US the gigantic mess of rules means that doctors have to recommend the most expensive, marginally better Name Brand drug over the significantly cheaper generic equivalent because they'd have their pants sued off if they prescribed the "less effective" one and the patient died (keep in mind, this is like a +1% survival rate over +0.5% survival rate when the respective costs are $2,000 and $10).

A lot of Canadians, at least where I live, either get covered by OHIP to go to American hospitals (Not sure how they cover the multi-hundred thousand dollar bills for the exotic surgeries they usually send Canadians over for) or they get American insurance just in case they end up in cracks. Our system is certainly worse in some ways, but it isn't completely inferior by any means and his advantages of its own.

[MonkeyHead]

Kinda reminds me of the American politician (thier name escapes me) who when speaking out against Obama's healthcare reforms cited the NHS as an example he disliked. He claimed that if Prof Hawking was born in, grew up in and lived in the UK, he would have died at an early age as the NHS wouldnt have cared for him. It took me a while to remove my palm from my face on that one.

[Techhead]

It was a conservative blogger, whose post can be found here. The post, however, has been edited with the following note:

Editor's Note: This version corrects the original editorial which implied that physicist Stephen Hawking, a professor at the University of Cambridge, did not live in the UK.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Not to mention Hawking didn't need serious medical attention until his 30's or so.

[mainiac]

Romney pulling advertizing in Michigan and Pennsylvania.  This probably means that he's writing them off as hopeless.  This doesn't really give Obama a lock on the election but it means that Romney will have to win a large share of the states still being contested, most of which he is trailing in.  Here is a map that shows swing states as the ones that the candidates are still advertising in AFAIK:
http://www.270towin.com/2012_election_predictions.php?mapid=xeu

[GreatJustice]

Romney pulling advertizing in Michigan and Pennsylvania.  This probably means that he's writing them off as hopeless.  This doesn't really give Obama a lock on the election but it means that Romney will have to win a large share of the states still being contested, most of which he is trailing in.  Here is a map that shows swing states as the ones that the candidates are still advertising in AFAIK:
http://www.270towin.com/2012_election_predictions.php?mapid=xeu

Naturally. If Romney won Michigan and Pennsylvania, advertising or no, he'd have basically swept the rest of the Rust Belt and won the election already. Similar concept to, say, New Mexico or Maine.

[mainiac]

Naturally. If Romney won Michigan and Pennsylvania, advertising or no, he'd have basically swept the rest of the Rust Belt and won the election already. Similar concept to, say, New Mexico or Maine.

I get what you are saying but that's not why I posted this news.  States can behave idiosyncratically and campaigns do not know ahead of time what those idiosyncratic behaviors will be.  A few months back it was within the realm of possibility that Pennsylvania or Michigan could be states right at the margin, maybe something funky would happen at the local economies or maybe the support from different demographic groups would shake out differently.  So it is true as you pointed out that Romney is just acknowledging the status quo.  However observing the status quo is new information, because it tells us that a shift did not happen.

[RedKing]

Okay, now that conventions are over, let's take a look at the polls:

National:
Gallup          Obama +5
Rasmussen   Obama +4
RCP Average Obama +1.8 (8/22-9/8, so still capturing some of the pre-convention numbers)

Job Approval:
Gallup          Approve +6
Rasmussen   Approve +5

Ohio:
PPP            Obama +5

North Carolina:
PPP            Obama +1


The narrative coming out of the conventions is that Obama got a bounce, Romney didn't. Some are speculating that the Clint Eastwood thing may have negated much of any potential RNC bounce, simply because it swallowed up all the media conversation in the immediate aftermath. It's worth noting that, per Nate Silver, Gallup has the strongest 'house effect' towards Republicans of any of the major pollsters this cycle. So when Gallup is finding Obama at +5 and with positive job approval numbers for the first time in a while...that's significant, unless they're falling prey to whatever kind of frontrunner fallacy that Rasmussen always seems to. Probably be another week to see the full permanent effect of the convention bounce. I'm more interested in the state-level polling at this point, which we'll have to wait a day or two for.

[Kogan Loloklam]

I heard a rumor that because of Romney's faith, his family has ties to mexico. Like he was born there. If this is true, the irony is delicious. Is it true? Anyone know?

[Euld]

Pretty sure that's a rumor, not sure how being a Mormon has to do with being born in Mexico :O

[Mego]

I heard a rumor that because of Romney's faith, his family has ties to mexico. Like he was born there. If this is true, the irony is delicious. Is it true? Anyone know?

I highly doubt this. It sounds just like 4 years ago (and 3, and 2, and 1, and a few months ago, and unfortunately still now), when people were ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that Obama was born in Kenya.

[RedKing]

No, but Romney's ancestors did immigrate to Mexico at some point, and thence to the US. Not that they were "Mexicans", just "white English people living in Mexico".

So this picture made my day.

Spoiler: Don't ever stop being Joe, Joe. (click to show/hide)

Yes, that is the Vice President of the United States. Cuddling up to a biker chick. And from the reactions of her buddies, about to get his ass kicked in the parking lot afterwards.

[Kogan Loloklam]

I heard how it worked out was because of marriage rights. His grandpapy believed in the right to have multiple wives, and left with a group of other mormons to Mexico to keep the "obey the law of the land" tenant of the Mormon faith while still being all surrounded by wives. Well they maintained their US citizenship while living down there, but Romney was born in Mexico. I hope it's true, it would just be too rich! Birthers Unite! Let's compare their birth certificates! And tax documents! And educational records! And their last tests for STDs!

[palsch]

Romney's father was born in Mexico, in a Mormon colony founded by his own grandparents to practice polygamy. That same father was Governor of Michigan and Secretary of HUD without problems regarding his birthplace or grandparents polygamy. I didn't think that sort of thing skipped a generation...

I think that his fathers name might be more damaging stripped of context. After all, Mitt is the literal son of George W. On the other hand, it was the George W. who marched for civil rights and considered Barry Goldwater's conservatism a drag on the Republican part.

[RedKing]

That's kind of mashing his father's and grandfather's history.

His grandparents lived in a Mormon colony in Mexico (of which there were several), and his father was born there. The whole family fled Mexico around the time of the Mexican Revolution (c.1910) and moved to Salt Lake City. George Romney then moved to Detroit for business and eventually became Governor of Michigan. Willard Mitt Romney was born in Detroit in 1947.