I can at least afford to pay off my college debt.

If they forgave everyone’s debt but mine, I would still be cool with that.

I just don’t want the cost of college to keep increasing. It’s bullshit how they capitalized on the student loans to begin with and I hold them significantly responsible for the shape of acadamia, in America today.

Yeah, and their fucking price points…

Their model was literally, “Well it lasts five times as long, so we’ll charge five times as much!”. Completely ignoring the fact that they didn’t cost that much more to make.

My president just brokered a deal to buy diesel from Putin.

I think it’s fair to burn all Russia’s diesel to the fucking ground.

You can’t underestimate the people who will choose not to vote.

The race is so close that the Republicans that are fed up with the bullshit Maga - hats are pulling are likely to stay home.

Not a huge percentage, but enough to make a difference and those ads help support that. I just think the ads suck. They are so cut and paste, that they may as well be fake

I agree with almost all of your post but I have to say this about open carry.

I live in Texas . I occasionally see people open carry. If I see someone open carrying, I tend to avoid them.

It’s as stupid as seeing someone walking around with a sword or a big knife. You call yourself out and make yourself a target.

Everyone around you suddenly knows you have the power of life and death over them but have no idea what kind of person you are. That can produce fear, and at the very least, make some uncomfortable.

It’s also not a statement of strength. It is a statement of fear. I fear that those around me may do me harm, so I want to be able to protect myself from them and show them I have the power to do so.

It separates you from the people around you.

Conceal carry, great, no one gives a shit, but as soon as you open carry, you may as well have a flashing neon sign saying, “Look at me, look at me!”

It attracts all the wrong kind of attention.

I am not saying you fall in that group, I do not know you at all, but that has been my anecdotal experience in Texas

I checked mine and it literally said, “Has love handles.” Lol.

I came here to post but went back to get a screenshot and it was gone.

Creepy x2.

Edit: And now it’s back.

That is something to be proud of.

The personal experience my family has with Google and their data center development, from behind the curtain.

Google doesn’t give a fuck. Some of the people outside of their executive offices do, but not Google leadership. They have no conscious, no morality, no sense of duty or patronage.

They will not hesitate to lie, break promises, or hide the full truth.

They exist only to capture more wealth in any way that they can.

Yeah, the ban on TP-Link is for good reasons.

That is not an opinion, but on objective truth.

The first Doctor was an urgent care center. They are usually very limited on what they can provide. They are generally MUCH cheaper than an ER, but they can only do so much and do not provide any in patient care. He suggested an ER, because if her migraine had not gone away by then, then she was going to possibly need more advanced care than he was able to provide. ER’s can diagnose to a higher level and then provide that advanced care.

I think of urgent care as a midpoint between school nurse and an actual hospital.

Kind of frustrating that she ultimately only received the same level of care at the ER, that she got at the urgent care clinic. But to the original Doctor’s point, he was not going to be able to provide anything further than they already had, so if there was anything else that could be done, or another contributing condition that he could not diagnose, the ER is where she would need to be, to determine that.

I see my PCP for my migraines, but he has hours, so if I have an episode that does not respond to meds, and is not going away, they also tell me to go to an ER.

Similar thing happened me.

TLDR: Went to two ER’s. The first one said they couldn’t help us and charged us over $1000, the second went to bat for us with our insurance and got the cost knocked down.

Full story.

I had a daughter (~4-ish) who was experiencing unexplained symptoms that appeared almost overnight.

She had complained of pain when moving her arms and developed, what looked like a sunburn, on her back. I put calamine lotion on it and put her to bed. The next morning, as I was rinsing her off in the shower, her skin just started sloughing off where I had put the lotion. It looked like a chemical burn to me.

It was a Saturday morning. Immediately went to urgent care. The Dx said he had no idea and that it looked like a chemical burn to him too. Said I needed to go to an ER. I went to the closest ER (Houston Methodist Willowbrook Hospital). It was empty. They checked us in, put her in an examination room and took her vitals. After an hour, a doctor came in and said they don’t know what the issue is, they don’t have a pediatrician on duty, and they can’t really help us!? The Dx then suggested I take her to Children’s in downtown Houston, and they would arrange an ambulance. Fuck that, I told them no and I took her myself right away.

Got to Children’s ER, they put us in an examination room right away. Within 5 minutes, a nurse was in the room and immediately diagnosed her with a stage 4 staph infection (scalding skin syndrome). She gave her an I.V. and they started pushing antibiotics and morphine. (Later had to swap pain meds, because the morphine made her itch and every where she itched, her skin would come away.) I still have to fight back the tears when I think about it. They said if we had waited another 8 hours, she would have likely died. She spent five days in the hospital recovering. But she did recover and is doing very well now.

So, two different stories about hospital billing from this experience.

The first hospital charge us over $1000 for the visit. $1,000 to be told we can’t help you, but let us make you sit and wait while this infection progresses in your child.

Children’s was out of network for our United Healthcare plan and UH passed the full bill on to us. However, Children’s actually went to bat for us and negotiated with them and got them to give us the in-network rate and paid off 80% of the bill. Not before or since have I had a hospital help us like that.

We ignored the bill from the other hospital. Fast forward a few months and the hospital is calling us. I sat on the phone with the lady talking to me and I argued (nicely) that I felt it was unreasonable for them to even accept us, knowing they didn’t have a pediatrician on duty, and actually put us at risk by delaying treatment. I actually got her to admit that she agreed that it did not seem right.

Then the bill just went away and never heard from the hospital or anyone else again about it. So I am assuming they wrote it off. I know that medical debt is sold to debt collectors sometimes, but we have not seen or heard from anyone for over ten years.

I get that hospitals are stuck between a rock and a hard place sometimes, especially in the states, but my experience, the experience of the woman in the article, and the fact we spend more money on healthcare, per capita, than countries with a fully socialized system, just proves to me the lie that is sold to us on a fully private system.

Check out this guy that has two meetings a week. And none of them have similar titles, attendees or anything.

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This latest season was meh.

Watching him punch a 130 lb antagonist in the face and she is able to continue fighting after the briefest of pauses. 🙄

On that note, the plot armor the two antagonists had was terrible.

I really felt this season struggled with several of its elements.

The different agencies fighting, the CIA acting literally like keystone cops… it was lampoonish at times.

Kudos for replacing with the OG, non slop image.

🤜

Houston was my first thought too.