zn wrote:

PA Ram wrote:

I can’t even begin to imagine the harm he might cause. What might he do?

There are those who believe he can be no worse than Clinton–I get that.

I’m just not sure I agree with that.

Well for the record you are not alone. I feel the same way.

I am not even debating it, and regard the discussion as an extended “informal poll,” not a debate per se.

People have to act within the terms of their own conscience on this.

As it happens, for me, when it comes to that, I share your view.

I appreciate that, zn.

I do think that until the smoke clears from the election you and I should have private access to a “Barry Goldwater” forum–just a safe place from the communists. 🙂

Of course I’m joking–I love these leftists. We’re just going to have this disagreement, obviously. And that’s okay. My feeling is to have this hard fight in the primary–and Bernie did better than anyone could have hoped and that sent a clear message. Whether that will mean anything or not remains to be seen. If there is no Bernie in the primary that money and energy should go to the Green party in hopes of building it.

But when it’s all over I have to look at who is left standing.

And if Jeb Bush were running against Clinton–I’d vote Jill Stein. I don’t think we would have seen much difference there.

But I look and see and feel that Trump can be a national nightmare. The guy is a control freak on a level I’ve never seen. He is stubborn and reckless. He is one of the most ignorant individuals I’ve ever heard speak. I can read forum posts on DU from people more knowledgeable about a subject than he is. And he doesn’t even want advice unless it falls in line with what he wants to hear anyway.

I can’t imagine him as the most powerful man in the world.

The thought of Clinton being president sickens me.

The thought of Trump being president terrifies me.

And yet Trump will benefit by convincing frightened people that this is just another part of the holy war and that the answer lies in building giant walls around our country.

And it won’t solve this problem.

I get all of the arguments to to just vote Jill Stein or not vote or whatever–and in fact, I even agree with that sentiment on some level. But if bernie can get some of the progressive stuff he has been pushing into the Democratic platform. If Hillary chooses an Elizabeth Warren, there can be that subtle opening within the Democratic party.

Is Hillary still a neocon? Of course. But do I see her as reckless as Trump?

No. I don’t. Yes–she screwed up Libya. I get it.

My fear of Trump is how bad he can be?

If Gore had beaten Bush would we have invaded Iraq and set all this stuff of nightmares loose? I don’t think so. 8 years of Bush really was a disaster.

Well–Hillary is more war hawkish than Obama. It concerns me for sure.

But what about Trump? I can see us stumbling into wars and conflicts we didn’t think were possible–and not because of some neocon vision–but because he’s inept at all of that. He understands none of it.

Will he rip up the Iran deal and send nukes their way?

Who knows?

He strikes me as having no temperament for the job and his outright racism is a big warning light to me.

Am I being ruled by the same ol’ fear that always compels me to vote the “lesser” of two evils? Yes. And is she even the lesser of two evils? I can’t say I even know that for sure.

But I do live in one of those big swing states. And Pennsylvania is key to Trump’s strategy of winning the electoral votes. It’s a big key. I have to vote Clinton in my mind. Trump will give the right wing whoever they want on the court as long as it doesn’t hurt his own interests. He’ll give them most anything that doesn’t conflict with his interests.

I get the “Bernie or Bust” movement. I respect it and I think everyone must vote their conscience. But I have to follow my own conscience on this one. And that means a vote for Clinton. Or should I say a vote against Trump? Someday I suspect I will also hit that “Bernie or Bust” movement and I thought this was the year–to be honest. I really did.

But I’m not there yet.

Billy_T wrote:

Oh, and speaking of Game of Thrones, a series I like . . . . just found out via Wiki that one of its Show Runners, David Benioff, worked on “Troy.”

He seems to have shifted on the topic of keeping close to the source material since then. While there are differences between the HBO show and the Martin originals, and it’s now gone beyond them in time, they did try to keep it close. Martin has so many different characters, and so many different plates in the air at the same time, TV producers, even those who have the luxury of a series, have to consolidate here and there. So I get that. I just don’t get change for change’s sake, especially when the original is much better and more powerful (Homer, Aeschylus, Virgil, etc.)

I love “Game of Thrones.” One of the highlights to me is how they do the complicated political process of it all: how does a king maintain power? All of the scheming behind the scenes by lesser characters. How it all works to keep the machinery running.

Just a fantastic show.

But can they please give the Arya storyline a kick in the butt already? Finally–finally it looks like maybe she is finally done training after 6 seasons of training. And then last week happens. WTF?

That sucks. I really like him.

Wow! Some of you commies on this board are REALLY extreme. I am in the sensible center–of the left–or just below center but certainly normal.

And of course I am correct on everything I believe. If you matched my results–congratulations! You win! Otherwise–I don’t know what world you live in.

Actually I hate tests like this. I’m always turning the questions over in my mind in different ways and depending how I think about it I can give a different answer.

But I’m on the left–obviously–and that’s no surprise.

They were way too eager to sign Foles to that contract. They should have been smarter than that. What was the rush?

The entire man made global warming climate change is a FRAUD

Why, was it cold last week?

My condolences, Ozone. What a horrible thing to have to go through.

It’s frustrating and frightening to go through any sort medical crises but to do it in an environment where you don’t even speak the language? I can’t imagine.

“His head is probably spinning trying to get the playbook down pat,” Robinson said. “No. 1. That’s a lot of pressure. . . . He’s the man, so I can just imagine what he’s going through.”

I don’t get what’s so hard about this. Back in the day when I used to play QB for the playground pick-up league(when no one else wanted to play QB) I knew what to do right away:

“You go to the tree and come over the middle, Frank. Okay, Ed–go fast like you’re going all the way and come back to the tree. Joe–you go right to the tree and turn around. And Earl…you go to the tre—hey–hey…where’s the tree? They cut it down? Shit! Okay–everybody just go out.”

I do want to be clear about something. I do not think that all doctors are evil or selfish or greedy. If they wanted to be that they could have become hedge fund managers. I’m glad and grateful that men and women are willing to devote their lives, the investment, the lost hours with family–to a noble profession.

I was on a thread in Reddit this morning and someone posted an article about doctor’s salaries. In the comments sections there were all sorts of responses. This one caught my eye:

Family medicine resident (MD) here. I see a lot of people saying they wish they were a doc here, and I’m assuming it’s because of the $$ listed. Let me first say that I hope this isn’t taken as complaining, because at the end of the day I know that I’m incredibly lucky to have a great job market, job security, and will make a good living doing something I love. That being said, a few points on why money is a terrible reason to go into medicine.
Most docs don’t start making an attending salary until early 30s. At that point, you’ve accrued ~200k in debt, and with interest, will end up paying ~400k when all is said and done. Loan payments are approximately 2-3k/month once you’re out of residency. Most are paying off loans for 10-20years after starting.
To get to that point, you have four years of undergraduate, four years of med school (two of which are clinical, in the hospital ~80hrs per week, unpaid- actually, you’re paying them) and a minimum of 3 years of residency. Right now as a resident, I make about $13/hour before taxes. This is with working an average of 80 hours/week (sometimes more, sometimes less). This is consistent across all residencies and specialties.
if you want to work in any sort of an academic center, you’ll likely make less. For example, most attendings at my university make about $50k less per year than those in the private sector. They average about 65 hrs/week, depending on how efficient they are at charting.
Opportunity cost to get to the point that you’re making those amounts is huge. Friends of mine don’t understand when I tell them that you essentially sign control of your life over to your residency for those years. I do not get to choose when I take vacation. I do not get holidays off. I do not choose whether I work days or nights. I often don’t get to choose when my days off are (these all apply to the med students working with us too!). I’ve stopped counting how many weddings/family gatherings/birthdays etc I’ve missed because I’ve had to be working. My family has taken to celebrating all of the major holidays on off days (a few days before or after) the real thing to accommodate, but I know a lot of colleagues who aren’t that lucky. This is in addition to all the things most life choices most docs in training choose to postpone because of how difficult it is to put time into anything outside of training – marriage, starting a family, etc. I’m easily 1-2 life stages behind most friends from college.
I had several classmates who were pulling in six-figure salaries in business or banking right out of undergrad, who decided they wanted to do something more fulfilling. They all laughed at the idea of doing medicine to make a lot of money. From their perspective, if you’re smart enough to be a physician, you’re smart enough to go into something like what they did and you’d make much more money much more quickly.
That being said, if given the chance, I wouldn’t change a thing. I love what I do. And I also recognize that everyone in a successful career has had to make big sacrifices to get where they are today. But if you want to make a lot of money, there are so many other professions better suited for doing that than medicine.
I could go on for hours about this, but I’ll stop here. Happy to answer any questions if there are any.
EDIT: wanted to clarify that I’m not complaining about the compensation in general- just clarifying some misconceptions about the hardship/sacrifice getting to that point.

Other doctors chimed in and said that once they “made” it–so to speak the debt was not going to be a big issue.

But the point is that–it takes a lot to be a doctor–financially, personally and so on. I get that. I am so grateful that anyone wants the job. I do nothing close to helping society like they do. I respect them.

I would like to see this country make it easier for doctors to get established. Less burdens financially.

But it is true that other countries have cheaper health care than we do–and ONE of those issues is certainly “for-profit” insurance. It’s by no means the only problem. But it’s a big one. To my understanding, medicare does not pay as much as a company like–Aetna for example. And if medicare was the only source of payment–doctors would probably be making less money. The AMA is a powerful lobbying group that would not like to see that happen. They may want to see more people insured(privately)and they may agree that hospital costs are too high–that the costs of an MRI, for example–is random and ridiculous. And frankly–I don’t know what the AMA thinks. But they are going to hold the line at some things.

Since this professional group has a lot of clout–especially with democrats these days–their interests are going to matter. This is why trade agreements do not allow foreign doctors to open a practice without first doing a medical residency. They don’t want a flood of doctors coming in who may be willing to accept a single-payer type of system(this is all just me stating my thoughts–no proof of any of it). But the fact is that they have been protected while other jobs have not.

I respect doctors. We NEED doctors.

But health care in this country can’t continue as is–because having insurance won’t matter for millions of Americans. They still won’t be able to afford to see a doctor.

Looks like West Virginia getting slammed.

Brood V 17-Year Cicadas Due in Spring of 2016

Thanks to everyone!

This has been the best 54th birthday I’ve ever had. Sure there are those bitter about the size of the piece of cake I got–I get it, believe me. But in all fairness, there were plenty of beans for everyone. Some may think that Zooey had too many beans and I think we can all agree on that but in all fairness does any of that excuse wv ram’s odd behavior? I mean–bringing in monkeys to discuss Roe V. Wade as entertainment? Maybe this goes over big at legal conventions but for a birthday party? Also–did they really settle anything? All they did was swing golf clubs at each other.

I did appreciate Nittany showing up with a horse and buggy but the Amish family he buggy-jacked seemed really frightened and confused about the whole thing.

I do want to thank zn for the party favors but it may have been just a little cheap to give out bumper stickers that said “Pa” which is cool–but it was obvious he just used magic marker to black out “Le and ge” leaving just the Pa in the middle. I guess those Lepage bumper stickers are popular in Maine–but he did tear quite a few of them peeling them off cars. I’m not sure they’ll stick again.

Still–thanks to everyone and I do not know who is next on the birthday list but I just want to make sure that I call the biggest piece of cake now. It’s just what I do. And it’s all legal. Just ask the Roe V. Wade monkeys. 🙂