Botellines

Maybe a little bit less military support from the almighty US would make them come to their senses... Some of them have the kippa to tight on their skulls. Wonder how Americans don´t realize they are being pushed around by the israel lobbies... So much for the land of the free

and yet how many brain dead stereotype skydiver with the tattoos and piercings (to repeat - in order to show they are an individual .... just like everyone else) do you know that would pay good money to make themselves either irridescent just for giggles? You can make yourself glow with gene therapy or you can make everybody glow with warped´s home made flame thrower...

Black Box´s Recording http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZSGw51ZkmA&feature=related

To some extent yes. At least we were when Aznar decided to join Bush in his Middle East adventure. About Rota and Moron, i think it is apples and oranges. It is just rented soil where we let you have your military base in exchange for something. Same thing happens with embassies, it is a little piece of your country in my country and viceversa. Now, if you come to my country uninvited, killing the head of state of a sovereign nation and countless innocent civilians, then we would be comparing aples and aples regarding the situation in Irak.

I must've missed the news coverage of the troops forcing the Iraquis to pass that Constitution and vote for who the US wanted them to... can you point to me to a good source for that? Not really, however considering that a sovereign country like Irak still has a permanent presence of foreign military, i would say that democracy is questionable at best. Wouldn´t you agree?. If instead of McCain vs Obama, you somehow make it McCain vs Palin, you may fool yourself that it is democracy and the the outcome is people´s will, however either way Republicans win and Democrats lose. Furthermore if the USA has influenced other countries` governments by means of the CIA and secret services, what won´t they do if you add to the equation the regular army invading that very own country.

John, don´t be dishonest. SH was left to be judged by people who hated him. It was known to everybody that he would be executed. Had he been judged by baathist mates he would have been declared not guilty. Likewise if Bush´s fate has to be decided by 12 taleban peers, i bet you he will be declared guilty. Considering that the government at that time was a puppet of the US (probably still is) anything institutional can be consider as meddling in Iraq´s internal affairs.

The murder follows another shocking killing linked to a boy. Last Thursday, a 9-year-old Arizona boy reached a plea deal with authorities who accused him of the fatal shootings of his father and his father's room-mate. The boy pleaded guilty to negligent homicide in the death of his father's room-mate while the murder charge in his father's death was dropped. I am waiting to see John Rich´s solution. Probably give weapons to all their siblings so they can protect mommy and daddy if little joe goes nuts with dad´s shotgun.

I honestly cannot answer your questions for medicine is not my field, besides it was quite a while ago. However the savings were worth mentioning as the government pay for 90% of the cost of the treatment and the user pays only 10%. With a population of almost 50 million, savings of several millions euros is not an understimation. Not all drugs has been replaced with a generic, only some. The medical properties has weighted much more (if not all) in the decision than the cost-efficiency. What they advertised was that there was absolutely no diference between the generic and the branded drug. Of course not, but it is okay with me if they save some money that is unnecesarily spent and instead of buying a new jet for the stockholders of a pharmacy company they build another hospital or give a payrise to the doctors.

Something similar happened in Spain and the authorities found out that there was no real advantage using brand medicines against generic drugs. Si if the active component of "clamoxil Tm" is amoxiciline the government in the socielized medicine will prescript directly amoxiciline wich is much cheaper and does the same than the branded version. You can still buy clamoxil if you want to, but the government will not pay for it. It has saved the taxpayers millions of Euros. I don´t see anything bad about it.

Unless your religion forces you to take an stance on issues that has nothing to do with you. Welcome yo the world of religious intolerance.

You are totally right, "pillor bitter" was totally uncalled for. We don´t know yet wether he prefers to byte pillows or necks... So sorry, i couldn´t resist. Anyway, go to church to pray, to the dropzone to jump and to the blue oyster to socialize. It is usually not a great idea to get them mixed.

Exactly my point. But if your level of paranoia is high enough that you have the need to pack heat in a kid´s soccer game, why cannot i be paranoid enough to think that you are going to go nuts and try to harm me?

That is not the issue. Your "what-if" is: What if some nut comes along and decide to do any harm to any of the presesent?. And i admit you may have a point there, but i have another "what-if": What if she goes nuts and decide to shoot at any of the presents, no matter how law-abidden she may be? or maybe this one: What if her kid takes her gun and shoots my kid either as a game or over a petty dispute? Is my "what-if" any less valid than yours? If so, prove it.

That is not what i am talking about. Wether they are arabs or not, they surely will not apreciate foreign intromission in their domestic affairs. If you fund a terrorist group like you have done in the past (and probably still do), chances are that a group of the population is going to get mighty pissed at you. They may even try to blow the U.S embassy or something like that. Will you be surprised? will you think the reason is that they hate you because you are free?

Will you be surprise when the next terrorist attack on U.S. soil comes from Iran?

Hi christel!!! Nice to see you around.

You implied that i don´t get your point because of a lack of understanding of your culture rather than because your arguments are not strong enough. I let you know that i am not as foreign to your culture as you may think, maybe the choice of words were not the best, but in any case the point was made. About your experiences as an exchange student... most american exchange students i have ever met much prefered to hang out with other american exchange students rather than with the locals. If that was your case, no wonder you don´t have a proper understanding of their culture. Besides what do you have to say about those americans that think like me regarding guns. Is it also a lack of understanding of their own culture? And no, i am neither afraid of gun nor people with guns. Thanks for the psicotherapy. I do have my share of fears, so it is not a "macho" thing, but growing up away from guns give me neither love nor hate for them. I am not attacking your liberties, i could not care less wether you pack heat or not. It will not affect me with an ocean between us and i am willing to take the risk whenever i go to your country. If you read my first post i wasn´t commenting about wether you should be allowed to carry or not, but about the effects of gun proliferation in the society. Too bad people get their panties in a wad whenever someone mention "gun". As you said, you can do a lot of things with guns, unfortunately some people seems to forget what they were designed for originally. You just don´t think that you guys have a problem with crime and it is related to guns, fair enough. If you don´t mind a mass shooting everyonce in a while, i can see your point about letting things stay the way they are. To John, mnealtx, etc. I admit the anti-personel mine example was not a good one, but still what about grenades and explosives? should they be avalaible to all the law abiden citizens? If we talk about personal responsability what about dual use items, like opiates and in general items that can be used for good deeds as well as bad deeds? To Amazon and Belgian_draft, Good for you for teaching your kids or having been taught how to use other tools. I think that in your culture, by many people, guns are regarded as toys more than tools, and many people are taugh how to use only one tool.

Of course not, it is not the tools that causes the crime, it is the people using those tools that causes the crime. And before you propose banning knives, sticks and cars, i propose you to allow explosives like TNT, hand granades, anti-personel mines, etc on the hands of law abiden citizens. Hey, if it is a matter of personal responsability, and we obviously agree that it is not the tool but the person i don´t see why john rich can not put a mine field on his backyard. And besides, the columbine shooting would have not happened, it would have been the columbine demolition. So why do you want to draw the line between guns and explosives and not between knives and guns?

Don´t be silly john, Your facts are cherry picked among the zillions of statistics on the net, and your logic is flawed. How can you expect to convince a non-NRA member with those arguments. Listening to your reasons is not basic, it takes a lot of imagination, faith, and a NRA card membership, and i am afraid i am not ready for it. However, where you willing to consider that a gun is not the solution to any and all the problems, i am sure we could find some middle ground. Don´t worry about my sensitivities, if you don´t mind me calling you gun-nut, i can live being a gun-o-phobe. Sadly the only way for the gun-nuts to realize that gun proliferation is not a good thing is when they receive a bullet in the head. Too bad they will not have much time to think about their mistake.

You are way off the mark here. It is not that i don´t understand, it is that you fail to convince me otherwise. There is a big diference. It is not a cultural problem either, first of all, there is many american that think like me. Besides, i know your culture pretty well, i have lived in the U.S, been engaged for many years to an american woman, i have even shooted a gun while living there. Somehow i think that you have much less experience about my culture than i have about yours. In first place, we neither hate nor fear guns. We regard them as a tool, and a tool that suceds at doing what is designed to do which is to kill people. No more and no less. In the other hand it seems many of you consider guns more a toy than a tool. We can see prove of this on most of John Richs´s posts. By the way, do you usually teach young kids how to use chainsaws, welders and power drillers, because those are also tools. Maybe they are not as "fun" to use as guns.

By what misbegotten logic is a person having the means to protect themselves from violent crime "not be good for society as a whole"? If you are packing heat, it may be good for you. If everybody is packing heat although it may be good for every and each individual it will contribute to gun proliferation in the society. You may believe that gun proliferation is great, but i disagree. Whereas culture may be a factor, gun availability is probable the biggest factor in the crime rate in the U.S. (ending up in deaths) You may argue that if a criminal wants really bad a gun he is going to get it, but in Spain, where guns are not yet as readily available as in the U.S. it is not the case. Since there is not that much ofert of handweapons the price is quite high, and since a knife usually does its job as well as a gun for most crime purposes not very many criminals want to spend that much money on a gun. So gun proliferation in society will come back to bite the individual when most of the crimes are commited with a gun rather than a knife, taking in considerations that even if you are packing heat the survability against a gun is much lower than against a knife.

This is one of those situations in that what is good for the person as an individual may not be good for the society as a whole. And incidentally when something is bad (or not good) for the society it ends up affecting the individuals.

It doesn´t matter, your president did it first. PENIS!!!!!

It IS a form of socialism, which is neither good or bad, it is just a way to manage money and risk in this situation. I have the feeling that most people in the U.S despise socialism not because it has nothing good to offer but because is not the american capitalism. Fair enough, but i think we are debating the best cost effective medical insurance. Of course if you have the money and don´t mind to waste it, you don´t need either. Just pay the doctor whenever you fall sick. Exactly, as a matter of fact, i see some of your points as a i DO have private medical insurance as well as the government one. And having both i assure you that both of them have good and bad things. If i had to get rid of one, depending how much money i make i would choose one or the other, since the private cost a fixed amount and the public a fixed percentage of your income. For my country, however, i want public healthcare. I don´t want people without money for private insurance falling sicks and stop working and contibuting with their taxes.

Answering every single paragraph with a one liner doesn´t help much to prove your point. Actually you are quite socialist as well, because private health insurance is just a form of socialism. They pool all the money together and split it among those that they need it. If you are fairly healthy you will be paying someone else treatment. The diference is just a matter of preferences, of how do you prefer your money to be wasted. Wasted as in not going to medical treatment. You can choose to waste the money on endless government burocracy or waste the money on endless shareholder greed. To me wasted money is wasted money, i don´t care, i just thing that this amount has the potencial to be bigger because of greed than because of burocracy. I pay 4,70% of my income to have public medical insurance, that cover everything but stetic and non serious dental care. On top of that we get 90% discount on meds and unemployment insurance. The drawback is long waiting lists for non serious medical conditions. By the way, the medical insurance and the discount on meds is for me and for those of my close family that do not work Those that work has to pay as well. To have peace of mind, for not that much money i have private insurance as well, that cover those minor things that take a long time to be solved by public insurance. I bet all in all, i have bigger coverage for less money that what you guys pay over there. I am not against capitalism, but i am aware of its limitations, like resorting to socialist handouts when the market does not regulate properly. The wisest thing is to take the better parts of both instead of just choosing one for pride sake. Edited to add that the waiting list is for specialties like traumatology, endocrinology, etc. You can usually get an appointment with the family doctor the next day or even the same day if you call soon in the morning.