I voted today.

Yep, sure did, voted for some Democrats, some Republicans, and a Green or two.

I recommend voting early, it's so easy, and very quick. It took us longer to find a place to park than it did to vote.

If the race were more contested in AR, I'd have asked for a paper ballot just to be thorough, but I used a touchscreen one instead.

The whole nation needs to switch to mail in ballots like Oregon. There is a paper trail for each ballot, and very little chance of machines messing it up, and the voter turnout is extraordinary. Plus, there is the added benefit of the race actually being over when polls close because the vast majority of the ballots will already have been counted. There is much less opportunity for cheating at the polling places, and much less opportunity for cheating all together. At least, that's my opinion.

WiredForStereo

Fall Update, Life on the Farm, Home Resource Consumption Etc.

A lot of stuff has happened this year, so I thought I'd put together a post to tell you what I've been up to and the changes that have taken place around here.

I kinda expanded the farm, I brought back 5 beehives from Oregon, I also brought a rototiller, a table saw, and quite a bit of beekeeping stuff to expand my stock. Oh, I built the trailer from scratch too, and brought it back too.



The Banana trees have grown quite well this year, they are handily fulfilling their purpose of shading the heat pump to make it more efficient in the summer. They multiplied too. I need to whack them down, dig them up and move them inside for the winter in the next few days before it freezes.


Just installed a new window this past Saturday, it is quite a bit more efficient than the old ones. It is vinyl framed, low-e and argon filled, the best Lowe's has, but not apparently the best there is.


Here's the only pic I took of the tiller, it had been sitting in a chicken coop for nearly a decade, I got it purring like a kitten. Also on the farm this year is the mower, the 48 inch deck makes collecting grass clippings for mulch worlds easier.


Here's what I'm doing with the clippings, card board or paper goes down first, then the clippings on top. This is the start of my no-till gardening project. What's the tiller for you say? Preparation and for removing some bumps in the lawn.


This simple wire compost bin has been full several times this past year, but it quickly processes down. Here you see a trash can load of used tissues, they compost just as good as anything else.


Some fruits of our labors, a little round water melon. This melon was executed and eaten shortly after the picture was taken. It was then finished off in the worm bin.


A pretty big tomato.


A pretty big tomato worm. He also was promptly executed after the picture was taken. I didn't eat him though, he got composted.


This is the tomato where all the above action took place. To be fair, I believe there are four separate plants in this group, they were fed by composted horse manure.


This is my main apple tree. It looks a little weird because it had never been pruned til I did it the first time, and naturally, it will be a few years before it looks proper, but it did produce like a factory this year. I had people stopping by to pick apples and even offer me money for them. I also use the grass clippings to mulch under the trees as well.


This is where the beehives are now, shaded in the hot mid day sun, but not shaded in the winter. Curiously, even in high winds, the trees also seem to keep the hives from falling over.


Got some taters this year too, these were started from some that started growing in the fridge, they did quite well considering the fact that they were completely uncared for, and I actually accidentally mowed them once or twice to boot. Yes, that one is quite big.


Rebuilt the engine in my pickup, not the whole thing, just replaced the head, cam, clutch, pressure plate, starter, transmission, and all gaskets thereof.


This is my step-grandfather's cement mixer in Nesika Beach Oregon. 'Bout the coolest little thing I've ever seen. I like electric stuff. No wheel barrow necessary.


Hauled some manure from a local horse enthusiast family from church. Way overloaded, I couldn't go over 50 mph. Shortly after this, I undid the lowering I had done previously on the truck.


Blackberries. These things aren't thriving. I think I need more manure.


I tend to be an organic guy, but I'll spray me some poison ivy.


The garden in full bloom. Not very fertile soil yet, corn didn't thrive, peas failed, beans did ok, squash got eated by vine borers, pumpkins too, broccoli fine, cauliflower no. See if you can spot the garlic, carrots, and taters.


This is the hammock that got stolen from my little campground in the making.


Two new apple trees. I hope to add a few more next year. Finally got the deer to leave them alone, they both got practically stripped.


Just today I got my new worm bin, a Worm Wigwam. According to the feeding instructions for the WW, It should eventually be able to handle 20 lb. of material a day, producing 75 lb. of vermicompost a week. This totals to 7300 lb. of material processed into 3900 lb. of compost per year. Of course these are probably VERY ideal conditions, but I have heard of successful productions like that using this unit. If I plan to do anything like that, I'm gonna need a whole pile of manure and whatnot to supplement because I just don't make four tons of kitchen scraps per year. However, the Can-O-Worms wasn't doing the job on a number of levels. It's for sale by the way. I can't seem to add any more images, so you'll just have to Google "Worm Wigwam" to see a picture, it's not very exciting to look at, and none of the pictures do justice to the color, it's a nice dark forest green.

Also, power consumption is looking quite good for this year since we installed the on-demand water heater. August and September showed usage of 13.1 and 16.4 kWh per day respectively and this compares quite favorably to last years numbers of 29.8 and 21.1. August was probably so low because we were in Oregon during the heat wave, and some should be factored in for the mild rest of the summer, but September should be about where it's at. That should put August somewhere in the 20-23 range which is still quite favorable especially for the middle of the summer. Oh, and I just remembered, the radiant barrier insulation in the attic probably also helps substantially.

We'll see how it goes this winter, I hope to replace a few more windows. I hate drooling windows.
WiredForStereo

All American Gettin' Whatcha Deserve, Joe the Plumber.

I was listening to Rush Limbaugh today as I often do to remember why I'm not a conservative and he was whining about what has happened to Joe Wurzelbacher, the guy who caught Obama at a photo op, and who ended up winning the last debate, or so I hear. Not sure how that happened, I don't think he was there.

Anyway, El Rushbo was whining about how Obama's people had torn ol' good American worker Plumber Joe a new one.

Well, I'm a firm believer in getting what you pay for, when you stick something in where it don't belong, yer liable to get it slapped or chopped off, know what I mean? You should know I get that from a Biblical perspective, read Proverbs, it's in there all over, the stuff about fools.

So Joe catches Barry and says something like "I'm gonna buy a business that makes $250,000, and your tax plan is gonna tax me more, huh?

Well, there he went and stuck his nose out there with a loaded dishonest question, and it's his own fault that he got burned. Turns out, Mr. Joe doesn't make that much now, nor has he ever, nor does the business it turns out he's not buying, nor will it ever, and wonder of wonders, he has a lien against him for unpaid income taxes in the past. Additionally, he asked a loaded question, because as everybody who has done tax stuff for their own business (as my wife I and have,) you gotta make substantially more than that much to get taxed for that much because of all the deductions you get to take, so even if this imaginary business does make that much, he won't be paying those taxes, because after deductions, he'll be well under that.

What is making me scratch my head is that McCain responded to Obama's tax proposal with "40% of American workers don't pay taxes so how can they get a tax cut." Wait, wait, wait. What it is that you are telling me right here, your response to the other guy's idea is that 40% of the workers of our country are so poor, poor to the point where they don't have to pay taxes? Is this something you're proud of? You can't give tax cuts to the poor because they don't pay taxes because they don't make enough because your Reaganomics plans have shifted the wealth to the rich? So the rich deserve tax cuts because you gave them the money with which they pay taxes? Did I miss something? So spreading the wealth is in some way worse than what you've done which is spread the poverty?

Let me do a few calculations.
Progressive thinking = Spread the wealth. =>Let everyone make money.
Reaganomics = Spread the poverty. => Let those who have money make money. Those who don't, we'll just pacify by telling you that all the money you're giving us will ensure that you have a job, low paying as it may be. But actually, we don't really care if you have a job or not, but we really do like the extra money.

Since the Reagan presidency, wages of workers have stagnated (adjusted for inflation.) We know where wages for CEO's have gone. And who are we gonna give the tax cuts to?

I know one thing, God (at least in Biblical times) has a record on being on the side of the poor.
WiredForStereo

Love, Sex, and Dating

Today at New Heights Church, in both the Summit and the NHSM services, we did what we call Love, Sex, and Dating or LSD. In the past it's been done in the evening, but this year it was decided to make a whole sermon series out of it and have the panel discussion as part of the final part of the series. Unfortunately, that left us a bit short on time for the NHSM service, and I believe a very large number of really good questions went unanswered. So, I brought my question cards home (I had four of them in my hand when we had to quit) and I'll answer them for you here because they are excellent questions (that's why I chose them out of the Agape Jug) and they need to be answered, especially for the people who asked them, but also for everyone else who needs to hear them.

The first two questions are very closely tied together, and you'll see why. The first question was "What do you do if your boyfriend/girlfriend pressures you for sex?" The second question was "Did you remain pure until you were married?" You may be able to see how these two questions are related, because if the first answer isn't "dump them," the second answer will be "no."

If your bf/gf pressures you for sex, drop them like a rotten watermelon from a third floor balcony. If this person is doing this to you, they obviously don't respect you. What else are they going to pressure you on? Do you really want to date someone who doesn't respect you? If they find they can do it successfully, they'll do it again, and with other things. Women are especially susceptible to this. God created them with the desire to serve and to please their husbands, but girls, if you let that God given desire to be a good wife be fulfilled in someone who is not your husband, you are selling your self short. Guys, the same goes for you. This is what happened to me.

This leads me to the second question. I did not remain pure until I got married. It was the biggest mistake of my life. I'll go ahead and give you the cliched "if I could do it over again..." I was lured in by a girl who would do whatever I wanted to do, but the difference was, she wanted to go further than I did, but I was the type who was wandering around looking for the line to not cross and in my wandering, she easily lured me over the line.

Please listen to me. Don't give yourself away to someone who doesn't respect you. Don't invest your time and soul into someone who just wants some physical pleasure out of you. They are selfish, and on the tiny chance you get married, nothing will change. I've been there before, you get one chance, only one. Like Josh said today, God can heal all things, but that doesn't mean there won't be scars.

The third question I had was "Is oral sex, sex." Let's look at this one grammatically. We have a noun modified by an adjective. The noun is sex, the adjective is oral. It's still sex, it's just a special kind. Remember who the person is, they are your brother or sister in Christ, you don't want to be doing that with your brother or sister do you? If all else fails, you can ask Bill Clinton. No, ask Hillary, she'll probably give you a better answer.

The fourth question was "Is it ok to french kiss?" Isn't that what oral sex is? No? Oh...
Like I said, you don't want to kiss your sister. I do think it is ok to hold your sister's hand from time to time, if you are close. I think a kiss of greeting on the cheek or something like that is also ok, if it is your custom. Platonic hugs are also ok. A good question to ask yourself is if you'd do this with a close acquaintance of either gender, such as say, your sister, or someone elses wife because unless you marry her, that is what she'll end up being.

If it's ok to do in public with your sister, it's ok in my book. In fact, I think you should be doing it in public.
WiredForStereo
P.S. If you leave comments, please do not use my real name, I'll have to delete your post. But please do leave questions and comments.

Worshipping at the Altar of Capitalism.

Don't get the wrong idea straight off here, I'm not advocating socialism or communism, in fact, I believe that capitalism is the default nature of the human economic construct. It only makes sense, I make a product, I get paid based on the value of that product. The proof is in the history, there is no nation that has been able to get rid of a capitalist system completely, even communists can't get rid of it. There is always somebody who wants something and is willing to do something proportional to the value he ascribes to the object to obtain it. That is capitalism, and it has existed since humans have.

But what happens when we take hold of something, we take it to heart, we use it, we ascribe success to it, we ascribe failure to things that work against it, we give it value in our lives, we tell others about it, we think others without it are missing something, that they will be happier with it, we work towards its goals, we give it our time, we have faith in it to provide us success, wealth, fulfillment and happiness. Am I talking about religion? It certainly sounds as if I could be. No, I'm talking about American capitalism.

Conservatives claiming to be Christians talk about it all the time. True, more of the ones old enough to remember the Cold War talk about it than others, but those are the ones with the loudest voices right? But what kind of system would better lend itself to true Christian values? What kind of system would better fit the societal goals of Jesus himself? Is it winner take all brutish capitalism? Somehow I don't think so.

I heard a great idea come from Warren Buffet I think it was the other day, don't quote me, I have a notoriously bad memory. He said our current system as evidenced by the big bailouts is one where the rich live in a system of socialism, while the poor live in capitalism. His point? The rich receive all the help, while the poor not only pay for it, but receive nothing. I believe this is what the Bible is talking about when it decries the rich taking advantage of the poor. So our values now in this country are to make sure the rich keep their wealth so that their grape vines can hang over their marble walls to provide us with a few grapes now and then? That's not the ideal I live to support.

Am I trying to stoke some sort of class warfare? Absolutely not, I think the phrase is overused. I hear it from Hannity all the time, but he uses it as a catch phrase to deflect criticism of the current tax policy. But let the current trend continue, let the disparity between rich and poor continue to broaden, and you'll see real class warfare, you'll see the have nots rise up and take from the haves, and no one is gonna like the result. All existing examples are complete bloodbaths and gigantic horrific messes.

So we know what doesn't work, especially if our goal is to be prosperous as a country. We know that a policy of trickle down economics, Reaganomics doesn't work to bring prosperity to the country at large, it only serves to redistribute wealth to those who already have it. So the conservatives decrying wealth distribution are doing so to their own hypocrisy for they already support it as long as it is directed toward them and their ideals. But try to "spread the wealth" a code phrase for offering relief to those who need it, and suddenly there are cries of class warfare and socialism. Just today Hannity was whining about someone basically having his hand in your pocket because you make more, but that is a gross distortion. Like the welfare system doesn't do that already?

What we need is a system such that the playing field is much more level, where the rich do not suffer the injustice of losing all their hard (right) earned money, but the poor still have the chance to work hard and make something, but also so that no one is "living off the state" anymore than the amount it takes to feed one's self. We certainly do not want to be a country where people starve to death, no matter how much they don't work, but we should not be required to provide them a luxurious dwelling.

One way I think we can do this is by making the capital gains tax the same as the income tax, taxed the same way. No matter how you make money, whether you work for it, or whether you have enough money to make interest from your money, it should be taxed in the same manner. That's only fair. It is absolutely not fair for the rich who are able to make money from money to get to pay a lower tax than those not having enough money to do that. It makes no sense. I'm not saying this out of any kind of envy, I'm saying all income should be taxed in the same way. In fact, it would be even more fair if a ditch digger had to pay fewer taxes because his work is harder, but I'm not trying to put anyone ahead, it should be equal. No matter how you make your money, it should be taxed equally.

That is not to say however that however much money you make, it should be taxed equally, no, that is far worse, and in fact, we can see what steps toward that have done in the past eight years. The gap between rich and poor has widened by great leaps and bounds, so we know that is obviously a step in the wrong direction. The gap between the haves and have nots should never get bigger, it should get smaller or stay the same. You can't tell me that every single one of the millions of families living below the poverty line is there because they are lazy welfare society suckers. If there is one thing I have learned about poverty in my travels from there to the middle class, it is this: Poverty has very little to do with money. It is about knowledge, attitude, class, and culture. My neighbors live in a decrepit trailer, drive trashy cars, and yet have now as I speak probably $350 worth of Halloween decorations in their front yard. But I digress, back to taxes.

Taxes are in this country progressive, that is to say, the more money you make, the greater percent of it is taxed (to a point.) This is as it should be, but as the last eight years have borne out, the progressiveness is not quite at the point it needs to be to level the playing field. The rich are getting richer, and in perspective, the poor are getting poorer. We need to re-angle the graph of tax rates to better level off the changes between rich and poor. It can't be disputed that the more a person makes, the more taxes they can afford with out cutting into the fruits of their labors, there is no such thing as an income cap. Ideally what we should be seeing is that if the rich get richer, the working poor get richer as well, not that we should be taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor, but that the working poor should not be saddled with a burden they are not able to shoulder. If you lower the rates of taxes on the rich, you drop a weight on the working poor. You tip the playing field, and you don't de-penalize the rich for making money, you penalize the poor for not making money.

So what are our choices? McCain wants to lower taxes on the rich including the capital gains tax to "create jobs." This is "startlingly retrogressive" as I've heard it said. This is making a false assumption, what it basically says is this. If you have alot of money, I will lower your taxes, so you can expand your business and make a whole bunch load more money. It keeps the people low on the ladder low on the ladder. We are just surviving now because the dream of climbing that ladder has been dashed by the the tax policy, we look up and realize that the rungs of the ladder are missing. Our employers are offered the chance of getting richer for employing more of us at the same wages, see the difference?

I was reading Habakkuk this evening and God suggested I blog about it, the verse was this: "He brings all of them up with a hook; he drags them out with his net; he gathers them in his dragnet; so he rejoices and is glad. Therefore he sacrifices to his net and makes offerings to his dragnet; for by them he lives in luxury, and his food is rich. Is he then to keep on emptying his net and mercilessly killing nations forever?" Hab. 1:15-17. And this is the capitalism that Americans worship for by it they live in luxury, and in pursuit of it we destroy nations, and the rich trample the poor.

I suggest we abandon bare cruel capitalism in the name of Christ.
WiredForStereo

An American Electric Car on the Horizon.

What you see to the left is the Chevy Volt, GM's new range extended electric vehicle set to be released in November 2010. I say good. With GM's stock price hovering at about $6, they better finally do something right. You can't lose tens of billions of dollars a year forever and expect to stay in business, unless you're the US government, in which case, that would be a time known as the "good years."

Why do I own Toyotas? Because in my opinion they offer a superior product. I would be happy to be a supporter of all-American products, but there aren't many that are worth buying. I took care of a small fleet of vehicles containing Toyotas, Fords, a Mercedes, and a GM. Which vehicles had problems and Toyotas ever had a problem, whereas every on of the others did, in fact, we sold one of the Fords because we had to fix it so often. We haven't had to take our own Toyota in for anything other than being struck by large objects moving at speed.

So while I'd absolutely love to have a moderately sized efficient reliable American vehicle, I just haven't seen one around lately. And the only people I hear advertizing for GM on the radio all drive Escalades, a vehicle which I feel represents a great number of things wrong with our country. Anyway, I hope that GM can pull it off, and just a stock tip from me, buy GM stock, it's REAL cheap and it can't exactly go down any further.

I think a lot of good things could happen if vehicles like the Volt become popular. I was thinking about one of them this evening. The Volt is supposed to be able to go 40 miles on a charge before using any gasoline. That means I think that trips will get on average shorter than that, our wasteful habit of travelling all over the place will hopefully diminish. Maybe we'll form tighter knit communities and be more interdependent on one another. And I was thinking that the gasoline preserver companies will probably make a few extra bucks because there is a much bigger chance the people's gas will go stale while it's not being used, and they'll have to use gas preserver.

Great cars change the world, look up some history.
WiredForStereo

Funny thing...

I don't know if any of you have been to California, but in case you didn't know, the apocalypse happens about every other week there. Here's an example of a wall of hell fire consuming the sinners, if you look close enough you can see the four horsemen in the background on the left.

Don't worry, I will write about some good stuff soon.

Why we need higher taxes.

See the Debt Clock ticker to the left.

End of post.

WiredForStereo

Free Membership

I just got a membership offer from PADI and though I know what it means it's poorly worded and seems to say at I'm going to be receiving a 12 month membership that seems to be "a free gift with your paid membership."

Anyway, I'm not buying it, no matter how free $29 ends up being.
WiredForStereo

Clean Coal, like Non Sticky Super Glue!!! Also, a Pickens Plan Followup.

Well, I'm sitting here at the U of A typing this up on a Mac, listening to dcTalk and Spoken Groove on my iPhone, I look like an Apple commercial.  Honestly, this is the first time I've ever used a Mac, and yes, I'm 25 years old.  The only two problems I'm seeing right now is that this thing doesn't have a wave keyboard and the screen is so huge, I .... wait, there's only one problem after all, seriously, the screen is bigger than my living room TV.  I'd by a Mac, if they didn't cost more than my truck... zing! 

Anyway, as you have, I've been hearing stuff about clean coal on TV and in the debates, and in the non-official debates, and spewed by the Republicans.  I'd just like to go ahead and say that clean coal sits right down there with hydrogen technology as far as feasibility and the possibility of actually coming to fruition.

I'll tell ya why.  Just like hydrogen, if the technology did suddenly and magically appear to make the idea even possible, there's boatloads of other problems that still don't follow the dot to dot.  If the technology did suddenly show up to capture carbon (which I could care less about) there's still all the other stuff I do care about, and you should too, sulphur, NOx's, mercury, lead, cadmium, and fly ash which under continuingly restrictive restrictions, is gonna be toxic waste soon.  There's still the problem of mining, mountaintop removal mining, processing and transportation of all that coal.  Just like hydrogen, if you can figure out how to make hydrogen economically, you still have to figure out how to transport and store it which so far still has big problems since hydrogen can LEAK THROUGH SOLID METAL.  Then of course, you have to use it again which is equally or more inefficient that making it in the first place.

These technologies have been 40 years from economic feasibility for 50 years now.

And that's the simple facts.

Addendum to the Pickens Plan, I've recently learned that the US already imports nearly a quarter of its natural gas.  So, Mr. Pickens, I really like the wind turbine idea, but I'm still coming up with the conclusion that you'd like to trade an oil addiction for a NG addiction.  Trading one import for another now.  NG like oil gets traded on the open market, which means as other countries use more of it, our price goes up.

Electricity on the other hand can't easily be exported to other countries, and can be used in infinite ways.  We make it here, we use it here, and other countries can't easily buy it from us.  Plus there's always the fact that I can make it in my back yard, which I can't do with oil, NG, or hydrogen.  Concerned about the limited range of electric cars?  I live 6 miles from town, how far away do you live?

I did think of one other bad thing about this Mac, the screen's so big, I can only use about a quarter of it to write this post because of the size of Blogger's typing window.  All this wasted space and electricity.  But I guess if I bought one and used it as my TV it could be economical.  Of course, for the same price, I could have a rockin' awesome PC and a big screen HDTV.  Plus, I wouldn't look like so much of an elitist. ;-)

Go with what works.

WiredForStereo

Nationalized or "Universal" Health Care

An anonymous (give me a final word on this, if you want to be anonymous or not) asked me to comment on nationalized health care, so here it is. It's really quite simple, it just depends on what side you take. Whichever side you take dictates the positions you support.

Here's why.

For every claim proponents make, opponents make an equal or exaggerated counter claim. For every claim opponents make, proponents make an equal or exaggerated counter claim. On nearly every issue, claims fall on both sides, cost, quality, the occupation of "doctor," just about every one. Basically, simple differences of opinion, and both sides give examples. But the pros look almost exactly like the cons except in the negative mathematically speaking.

Everyone I've talked to in America operates on a few vital misconceptions about the very nature of nationalized health care (that means you.) Firstly, very few NHC (Nationalized Health Care) systems actually use the government as the insuring agent. The government rarely really controls or owns the system, in fact in most cases, the government simply requires and regulates the system and helps those who cannot afford it.

The US: The American and states governments either directly or indirectly insure around a third of all their citizens. Talk about NHC! The problem is, for every person, not just those insured by the government, the government is already spending more than $500 per year per person more than some governments with NHC and indeed UHC. That's right, we're already spending more per person on health care, and two thirds of those people aren't even insured by the body spending the money!

Another misconception is that everything is covered, leaving the people to foot the bill. Wrong. Most NHC systems work exactly like American health insurance with co-pays, deductibles, and coverage limits. The difference is, poor people get help to pay, and pre-existing issues are covered. It's like accident coverage, not elective plastic surgery.

With the government overseeing and regulating a wide system like this, costs are likely to be much smaller than even current expenditures because of the potential for enhancing efficiency. And it makes no difference the size of the country. European countries are not all the same size, and several of them are larger than California in population. China is already over three times the size of the US and still has NHC which has to be payed for. The US health care system is the most expensive in the world, and yet, does not provide universal coverage. Tell me that can't be fixed. And the worst part about it is that that incredible expense doesn't even get us to the top of the list on stuff like infant mortality, life expectancy, and get this, in health system performance, we rank 37th, behind Slovenia.

In many NHC countries, a goodly portion of the citizenry actually keep insurance above what the NHC system provides. This is to cover stuff that goes over the basic program, like here when you pay more for a more enhanced plan. The difference is you pay less than the US because firstly, your covered for basic stuff by the regular plan, and secondly, the enhanced plan has a much narrowed likelihood of being needed.

Here's the surprising fact, just for you my anonymous friend: Two thirds of American doctors want NHC. That's now. You know why? For the same reason's why some don't want NHC. Doctors in America feel constrained by insurance companies, not able to provide the care they really want to for their patients. Insurance companies force you to go to certain doctors or they won't cover you (I know this intimately, and you do to.) However, in NHC systems, doctors are paid by the visit, which means, if your patients like and trust you, they'll keep coming back, and you keep getting paid, and if they don't like you, no one is forcing them to keep seeing you. Doctors don't have to worry about people not paying for visits, and bill collection costs drop off the map.

The final reason I like NHC is that poor people get helped. I remember a number of times in my childhood when my brothers or I got hurt or born and my poor father had to foot another bill. He still tells us of having to give up a hot rod for each of us (he builds them for a living.) To this day, he still doesn't have a running one of his own. The fact of the matter is, between my brothers and I, there were likely hundreds of times when we should have gotten help that we didn't because we couldn't afford insurance. I fell out of a tree when I was 15 and likely broke my back, (we're still not sure) but I didn't go to the hospital because it was too expensive. It still acts up on me some times, excruciating pain for sure. But the bottom line is this: people who need help get help. I have the stones to lay down another few dollars of my paycheck to make sure that people less able to pay than I am still get the same care.

The "Good Samaritan" did the same, he even paid extra to make sure the unfortunate dude got the care he needed. The funny thing many forget is who didn't help. It was the paid religious professionals and politicians (many of whom might be called conservatives today) who walked on by while a man was dying within arms reach.

I'm for people not dying, not just the unborn babies, I'm for all undeserving people not dying.
WiredForStereo