Disqus - Latest Comments for Bernamac

Re: Christmas in the Big City Ideas?

Wonder Woman Wonders... — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 22:38:04 -0000

Get 'em drunk on egg nog and rum. Then, come up to the NE neighborhoods and "ooohh and aaahhh" at the yard displays. There is one in my neighborhood that plays tinny Christmas tunes ALL F---ING night! LIttle plastic men dance to the music, I think. Craptastic! Tackyriffic! But, be sure to take Roosevelt up here so that they can be scared out of their minds from the bad drivers. Now, THAT'S a real Philadelphia experience!

A serious suggestion... Dinner at the City Tavern, I think its called. The one that claims to be the oldest pub in the city or the country. Its actually quite nice, and I bet they do one hell of a holiday dinner. Their pot pie was pretty darn good, as I recall. Its sort of cool to eat in a place where our founding fathers used to imbibe (if you ignore the fact that the tavern has actually been rebuilt due to fire and maybe moved from its original loc... not sure about the latter...).

Merry Christmas!

Re: Teabagging and Such

Wonder Woman Wonders... — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:01:37 -0000

Awww! Stingo can't take a joke! Besides, JGT dubbed them teabags!

Re: Teabagging and Such

Wonder Woman Wonders... — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:00:04 -0000

Its about the approach. My point is that other countries have figured it out. Lets look at what they did and learn

What is the basis for your assertion that the UK and Canada systems aren't "rosey?" I think talking to people who live and have lived in a country where they've made universal healthcare work is a lot less "glib" than just stating that "it aint rosey."

Go educate yourself on other coutries' systems, so at least you seem like know what you are talking about when you attempt to shoot the other side down. The Netherlands system is a joint system between the individual, the employers/businesses and the government. It covers all while keeping the businesses happy. The Netherlands is very "socialist" on the social scale and very capitalist on the economy. As my future in-laws say, "The Dutch like their money!" They are, by the way, self-employed and very happy with their healthcare system.

FYI, the Netherlands is a very business-friendly country. At the end are two links to CIA fact book. Look at the Netherlands and America. Very similar economies but yes on different scales. The US's GDP is $6000 more than the Netherlands, but the Netherlands has lower unemployment, lower poverty, more money in investments, actual growth in industry (the US is -2%), less public debt and less inflation (I'll stop there; you all can read).

https://www.cia.gov/library...
https://www.cia.gov/library...

Re: Teabagging and Such

Wonder Woman Wonders... — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:26:03 -0000

And is no one here going to acknowledge that these protests are called TEABAGGING!? LOL Teehee My inner teenager is amused. Yep, Amurika, the Right's healthcare system of choice will be a set of sweaty-ass balls right on your nose! That's all you deserve if you are unemployed, underemployed or employed by someone who doesn't care enough about you and your family to give you a real choice in healthcare. The "tea parties" are just organized advertisements for Fox News.

More on Dutch healthcare. http://en.wikipedia.org/wik... Its a pretty good summary. Dutch system is about 2/3 govt, 1/3 private. Yes, you have choice. Yes, you can purchase more insurance, if you want it. The bottom line: everyone has coverage. Everyone gets healthcare.

Re: Teabagging and Such

Wonder Woman Wonders... — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 09:29:13 -0000

"The government run systems in both Canada and the UK are not the rosy utopian delights you claim. Treatment can be slow, there are waiting lists and certain drugs and treatments are denied."

Why do people who know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about "socialized" medicine spout off about other coutries they know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ABOUT! Is the US healthcare system so rosey??? I'm really sick of people acting like they know "first hand" what the state of healthcare is in other countries.

Its bad in the US too!!!! I work in healthcare. Its bad. People get denied treatment all of the time by bureaucratic HMO's and even from our own "charity" systems, which also need overhauling. I personally know several people who have gone bankrupt and been forced into poverty by our "rosey" privatized system. Only when we stop thinking about healthcare as a "business" will this nonesense end!

My fiance is from a "socialized" country, the Netherlands, where their "socialized" system actually works! I also just heard a story about a woman from Poland who lived in the US, got colon cancer in her mid-20's and chose to go back to her "socialized" medical system to be spared the paperwork nightmare of the US system. Her "socialized" system spared her a paperwork nightmare and saved her life. She had no waiting for her treatments and is in remission (look at Fresh Air sometime in the past week).

Yes, for routine medicine, you must schedule appointments a couple of months out in these "socialized" countries. But, you have to do that here too! I am 9 month pregnant, and I had to schedule every single appointment weeks out because my office is so busy. Hell, I can't even get my dog into the vet for at least two weeks! LOL

OK, off my rant. I just hear this "aint so rosey" crap about other countries from a lot of people, not just people here. They don't know what the hell they are talking about.

Re: Where Were You on 9/11?

Wonder Woman Wonders... — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 10:10:52 -0000

And, OF COURSE, the radical nut jobs in the coutry are going to identify as either Democrat or Republican. We have a two-party system. There is no other room for the crazies to go to leave the rest of us normal people alone! Rarely does voting against mainstream get you anywhere in the US.

Re: Where Were You on 9/11?

Wonder Woman Wonders... — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 09:32:03 -0000

Bob,

Your first paragraph is completely unnecessary. Your second one is interesting. You can give more of an "insiders" view on how our govt completely dropped the ball on preventing the attacks, for various reasons. Put aside the partisan bullshit every once in a while and just be a person, OK?

Re: Where Were You on 9/11?

Wonder Woman Wonders... — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 14:07:31 -0000

RIP, DFW.

EXCELLENT!!! I have read this story AND lived in Bloomington, IL, from 2002 to 2006, when I moved to Philadelphia. As I mention below, I was in Indiana on 9/11//2001. DFW's desription of Bloomington, IL is very accurate-- a town "lousy with churches." God damn, and the CORN everywhere! Winter is a "pitiless bitch" and summer is an oppresive humid dictator!

DFW nails what it was like to live in a small town so far away from the real action. Yes, you mourn and you feel awful and you are scared out of your wits for a while. And, when all of these emotions should be dying down, it doesn't... People keep it up with the flags and the paranoia and the anti-Islamic bullshit. It was absolutely suffocating for reasonable people. Not liberal v. conservative thing but for people who didn't let their emotions get the best of them.

Re: Where Were You on 9/11?

Wonder Woman Wonders... — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 13:57:13 -0000

I was at Indiana University, at work at one of the campus libraries. Far far away from any action, but wondering, "WTF just happened?" I had only public radio (yea NPR!) to fill me in. The campus Internet was jammed. We all just listened. Its all that we could do.

I didn't stay panicked because it was pretty quickly evident that this was terrorist attacks and not an attack by a real country with any real power to continue such attacks. My own tears of mourning stopped soon after, too. But, the paranoia in Indiana for the next few weeks was appauling. That is the good and bad of having national media and will gladly spoon out every detail of a tragic event, including replaying video of people falling to their deaths off the WTC (does the nation really need to see that???) With a zoom camera, events that really don't affect you directly seem to be right at your front door. I had to completely cut off all media for a few weeks until the pornographic-like retelling of the tragedies finally cooled down. It was just too much to keep mourning for people that I didn't know! Like some sort of S & M Mobius strip.

Then, a few years later, I moved to Philadelphia, and met people who WERE directly affected by the attacks... And I felt really ashamed of the war-drum beating and the pseudo-patriotism because and the media coverage because none of that brings back what they lost.

Re: Happy Mike the Headless Chicken Day!

Wonder Woman Wonders... — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 11:35:22 -0000

"Any normal man would have picked him [Mike] up and cut his damned head off again..."

Priceless (1:10)

Re: Happy Mike the Headless Chicken Day!

Wonder Woman Wonders... — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 09:07:56 -0000

I need to wash my eyes with lye now. Ugh. That poor bird should have been turned into nuggets!

Re: Lily Tomlin Smackdown (NSFW. At all)

Wonder Woman Wonders... — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 14:17:10 -0000

Oh yea! I assume that is the director in the light colored suit acting like a child, David O. Russell. David O. Russell is a notorious asshole director. I heard he and George Clooney (not sure...) had fistfights on the set of one of his movies... Three Kings or something?

He isn't worthy to lick Lilly Tomlin's feet! She's a comedic legend. What a dick!

Re: Ted Kennedy and Michael Vick

Wonder Woman Wonders... — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 10:22:13 -0000

JGT's question brings up a lot of issues. I think its a good springboard for debating the tabloid press, race and class in our society. I see the question more about the vilification of celebrites.

It seems to me that there was a certain level of discretion and privacy with the personal lives of public figures in the past. There wasn't a rampant tabloid press to fuel a manufactured need to know about the personal lives of celebrities. The public today is a bunch of uneducated, ill-informed rubes who are more willing to follow the minute details of a celebrity scandal that any real news. I'm not above the fray, either. I watch my fair share of "E True Hollywood Story." I wish that I didn't... I think people separated back "then" (whenever that is) poor judgement in one's personal life from poor judgement in one's professional life. Today, there are no boundaries between a celebrities personal and public persona. And its a shame.

To the question offered by JGT, personally, I care slightly more that Kennedy accidentally killed a woman in a care accident than I do that Vick killed dogs. The dogs were truly innocent victims but they weren't human. However, the young lady shouldn't have gotten into the car with a drunk driver, so bad judgement by both people killed her. But, hey! How do you tell the boss that he's too drunk to drive? Obviously, I'm not blaming the victim, but she was not forced into the car with the drunk!

I'll throw out a few different questions. How does being a member of the elite, now or in the past, affect someone's worthiness of "forgiveness?" Are Kennedy and Vick even on the same social scale as "peers"? Kennedy was part of American "royality," well-educated, worldly, opportunities handed to him like a food on a platter. Vick was a poor black kid from the South who worked his way up, using his "brawn," and not his brains, as a professional athlete. White man. Black man. But, both are in very influential positions in our society. Old money vs. hero worship of athletes.

Is class relevant to how much someone is vilified by the press and public?

Re: Ted Kennedy and Michael Vick

Wonder Woman Wonders... — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 09:47:46 -0000

Maybe you ARE an invention of JGT imagination???? Hmmm, have we ever seen you two in the same room together??? Hmmm??? Dr. Goodtimes and Mr. Bob, eh??? :-)

Re: Happy Pee-Wee Herman Day!

Wonder Woman Wonders... — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 15:15:26 -0000

"No Alamo for Old Pee-Wee"?

Re: Tell ‘Em Large Marge Sent Ya!

Wonder Woman Wonders... — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 12:11:34 -0000

I first saw this movie when I was about 10. This scene made me jump so high! LOL I love it!!!

Re: Happy Pee-Wee Herman Day!

Wonder Woman Wonders... — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 12:10:24 -0000

OMG! David Lynch??? That would be "Pee-Wee Herman's Nightmare", featuring a midget doing a sombrero dance while an old lady in the foreground chants "huevo huevo huevo huevo huevo huevo huevo" for no reason while a man in all blue from head to toe smokes a cigar.

Re: Happy Birthday Rachael Ray

Wonder Woman Wonders... — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 08:38:09 -0000

Nightmare fuel

Re: Stephen Colbert Rips Glenn Beck a New One

Wonder Woman Wonders... — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 11:24:47 -0000

My stepfather is the most conservative person I know (he doesn't like Bush because Bush is not conversative enough). He thinks Glenn Beck is a HUGE moron. My stepdad also has a career in conservative talk radio in some smaller markets.

There was a change in Beck's tone when he switched to Fox. My problem with him is that he uses hyperbole and leading questions as fact, such as "Why don't the American people GET that we are heading down a path of socialism?" Not sure if he's ever asked that verbatim but its the type of statement he makes.

Re: Top Finishers at the Locust Rendezvous

Wonder Woman Wonders... — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 09:07:38 -0000

JGT - Nice pic for the Jams. Is your strategy to get them to pose to use an increasingly more embarrassing pic each week?

Re: Lead Singer Quiz

Wonder Woman Wonders... — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 10:46:25 -0000

Good job. I missed a lot. 120. And the question about Naughty By Nature is flipped, isn't it? The question is Naughty By Nature but the answer is Treach.

Re: Lead Singer Quiz

Wonder Woman Wonders... — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 08:56:13 -0000

Yep, its the same douchebag. And he is a homophobe. Isn't he the one who wore the tshirt "AIDS kills fags dead." Or was that Axel Rose, another "classy" fella?

Re: Lead Singer Quiz

Wonder Woman Wonders... — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 08:32:34 -0000

Wow! What a beautiful woman... I can't stand that arrogant ass.

Re: Question of the Week

Wonder Woman Wonders... — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 16:35:08 -0000

Death (penalty) by Chocolate?

Re: The Mysterious Death of Warren G. Harding

Wonder Woman Wonders... — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 12:58:22 -0000

LOL you two crack me up! I've had "Regulator" in my head since I read this posting this morning!