what car do you own?

[JAD_333]

Originally Posted by bonehead

Suppliments are mostly ignored by the FDA, ie, little or no testing, so they can claim all kinds of things as as long as they have the FDA disclaimer. The FDA should test everything and if it does as advertised, great! If not then nail the manufacturer for false advertizing. In the mean time people are intelletually, "groping in the dark" while they take this and that for whatever ails them in the hopes that something does what it was advertized to do.

It would be a gargantuan job to test all the supplements on the market. Do you mean vitamins and herbs? As for false claims that's the FTC's job and they don't do it very well, mainly because they have no teeth in their enforcement tools.

The FDA has also completely failed us when it comes to our food supply, which is another source of disease and ailments that drives up healthcare.

How so? The US has just about the safest food supply in the world. The USDA handles animal safety and for all the heat they took for that Canadian import cow in Washington state that turned up with Madcow disease they did a pretty good job of containing it. Mass production has its downsides as we saw with the spinich e-coli outbreak recently, but again they got the bad stuff off the shelves, found the problem and solved it. Same with the dog food problem. It wasn't too long ago when these kinds of problems would go undetected and run themselves out with no one the wiser and a lot of people dead or sick.

On the note of lawsuits, Oregon is trying to get an anti frivolus lawsuit on the fall ballot that would punish those who file with out a good reason (this includes the lawyer and the client). The wailing and knashing of teeth you hear is from the lawyers who are prophicizing the end of the world if this measure gets approved.

Tilting at windmills. Gonna be tough to pass muster in the Supreme Court. Who will decide when a suit is frivolous and how much punishment to mete out. They'll be right back to square one. Due process not served. And anyway, corporations with deep pockets that want to will still gum up your works with specious suits they can't win just to harass you, and gladly pay the fine. The best approach is to limit pain & suffering awards and narrow down the limits of liability. That doctor mentioned before who told his client's wife he would be out of the hospital on a certain day should not be liable for being wrong. He was exercising his professional judgement concerning the uncertain health of a patient.

[JAD_333]

Originally Posted by bonehead

I have either a K&N or an Amsoil filter in each of my vehicles. The only time I would use a paper filter is when I am running on a particularly dusty trail when 4X4, then the good filter goes on when I hit the pavement.

Are you talking air filter or oil. The K&N air filter is cotton saturated with a special oil and sits in the open with no shell around it. Lasts 50k before it needs cleaning and reoiling. Guess it would be less in very dusty situations. I have the Amsoil oil filter. oh, another thing i like about the 6.0 diesel is that the oil filter goes in on top of the engine, not underneath...old bones appreciate that.

[JAD_333]

Originally Posted by Gun Grape

I'll also bet that he didn't have to worry about your parents suing him for everything he had for "Substandard" treatment that could have crippled you for the rest of your life or for the mental anguish/trama that you suffered from him not numbing you up. Or performing treatment on their child without their consent. Or giving treatment that is inconsistant with their religous beliefs and on and on and on....

That was back in 1952. In those day, I doubt anyone could have convinced a jury that the doctor was negligent. My mom thanked him and, I think, gave him $10, the going cost of office visit.

...back in 84 I took a little break from the Corps. Had a job as a EMT. More than once, as I was bringing a patient into the ER, I've had a family member go straight to the doctor on duty and ask if I did everything right because they planned to sue me if I wasn't 100% by the book.

We were also required to change out bandage packs if they had been opened on a run. And the patent got charged for it. SO if I needed 3 4X4 gauze pads to clean up your wound, It had to come from an unopened box and when I was done, the box had to be thrown away. Guess who payed for it? Why did we have to do it? Because if you came down with an infection later, you could not claim it was our fault for using an opened package of gauze that introduced the infection to you. Same procedures when working in the ER.

The solution is elusive on this one. You have to have a system for smacking down incompetent and dishonest doctors and compensates patients who suffer genuine loss. How do you keep it confined to that end and prevent abuse?

[JAD_333]

Originally Posted by glyn

I think I read somewhere that there are more lawyers in America than any other country - or several combinations of countries added together. Why does the USA think it needs so many, and why are the law schools still churning them out in such numbers?

Do We Need More Lawyers?

Does California – or the country for that matter – need a new law school? Officials at the University of California at Irvine believe it does and are moving ahead with plans to create another law school even though the state agency charged with studying such issues is unconvinced of the need.

The University of California Board of Regents has signed off on the law school which will cost $70 million to build and is expected to open in 2009.

Irvine’s law school proposal was sent to the California Postsecondary Education Commission, an advisory group to the Legislature and the governor on higher education, in September. After learning that the commission would recommend against the law school, the university withdrew the proposal to provide more information. After reviewing the revisions, the commission “still is unable to make a recommendation,” said Murray Haberman, executive director. While Irvine is moving ahead, the commission’s reaction has renewed criticism of the project.

Dan Walters, a columnist writing for The Sacramento Bee, wrote in an op-ed called “law school plan smells like pork” that studies have demonstrated that California has about “a 90 percent oversupply of lawyers already.”

“California doesn’t need another law school that would be built at least partially with voter-approved bond funds and whose operations would be at least partially underwritten by taxpayers,” he said.

One area in which Irvine failed to meet commission criteria for new programs was proof of demand. The American Bar Association accredits 19 law schools in California

more...

Judicial Equality Foundation » Comments on “Do We Need More Lawyers”

[bonehead]

Originally Posted by JAD_333

Are you talking air filter or oil. The K&N air filter is cotton saturated with a special oil and sits in the open with no shell around it. Lasts 50k before it needs cleaning and reoiling. Guess it would be less in very dusty situations. I have the Amsoil oil filter. oh, another thing i like about the 6.0 diesel is that the oil filter goes in on top of the engine, not underneath...old bones appreciate that.

I was talking about the air filter. Very dusty conditions(4x4 on dusty trails) can gum up an oil saturated filter in a couple of hours on some trails. The oil filter stays on the whole year. Gotta love those new filters. I don't quite remember the configuration of the oil filter on the Ford 6L. I put a bypass filter set up on each "truck" I own if there is room. That way I can put the filter wherever I please and I can orient the filter so I won't spill oil every time I replace it. One of my main gripes about auto manufactures is that you can't change the filter without spilling oil in most cases.

[bonehead]

Originally Posted by JAD_333

It would be a gargantuan job to test all the supplements on the market. Do you mean vitamins and herbs? As for false claims that's the FTC's job and they don't do it very well, mainly because they have no teeth in their enforcement tools.



How so? The US has just about the safest food supply in the world. The USDA handles animal safety and for all the heat they took for that Canadian import cow in Washington state that turned up with Madcow disease they did a pretty good job of containing it. Mass production has its downsides as we saw with the spinich e-coli outbreak recently, but again they got the bad stuff off the shelves, found the problem and solved it. Same with the dog food problem. It wasn't too long ago when these kinds of problems would go undetected and run themselves out with no one the wiser and a lot of people dead or sick.




Tilting at windmills. Gonna be tough to pass muster in the Supreme Court. Who will decide when a suit is frivolous and how much punishment to mete out. They'll be right back to square one. Due process not served. And anyway, corporations with deep pockets that want to will still gum up your works with specious suits they can't win just to harass you, and gladly pay the fine. The best approach is to limit pain & suffering awards and narrow down the limits of liability. That doctor mentioned before who told his client's wife he would be out of the hospital on a certain day should not be liable for being wrong. He was exercising his professional judgement concerning the uncertain health of a patient.

I mean whatever is on the shelves should be tested to atleast make sure it is safe. When it comes to vitamins,herbs, natural remedies, it all should be tested for effectiveness. Yes it is a huge job, but it needs to be done considering the health of a nation is at stake. So far the FDA has maintained that only some chemical from a pharmacutical company can "cure". We all know this is not quite correct.
If we can take a natural product instead of an expensive handfull of pills that should be our choice, and we should be able to make an informed choice, ie, the product should be tested. The FDA has the jurisdiction to test all these things, but ignores them for two reasons. The supplement market makes billions and many companies in this sector do not want the public to know what works and what does not work. Secondly, the big money pharmacutical companies sure as heck do not want any of your grandmothers home remedies interfering with their profits.

U.S.A. has the safest food in the world? We also have skyrocketing health problems like diabetes, cancer, obesity, and other ailments that are out of proportion to other countries. Our food supply is suspected to be the cause of many of these health problems. The FDA reacts to immediete cause and effect, ie mad cow, and outbreaks, but researching the long term effects of food additives, colorings, preservatives, etc, is sorely lacking. Something is wrong here and I fear that the public is being blindly lead into believing everything is ok while it is not. I know we cant test for absolutely every thing and every combination of things, but lets atleast make an effort to force the FDA protect the public instead of spending resources finding ways to maximize big company profits.

We are getting sick all the time from our food supply, We for the most part simply ignore the times we don't feel quite right, and many people really do not know the difference between food poisoning and some other illness. The meat industry alone only has a tiny fraction inspected. Now we are getting much of our food from other countries that is not propperly inspected/tested. The c r a p we imported as a petfood additive is only the tip of the iceberg. The e coli outbreak with spinich had a good possibility to run out full term without the media's help. a few decades ago, by the time the FDA have had had a clue that something was wrong the food would be gone. With our food supply, timing is everything. Today, we can know most anything that happens in the world withing moments of its happennning.

I don't have the specifics of the frivolous lawsuits ballot to know for sure what it's effect will be, but I think it is a step in the right direction as it shows there are enough people who believes their needs to be a change in our legal system. There is also another ballot that limits fees attornys can charge for lawsuits so the victims acually get a cut if they win.
I agree on the limits of liability, but I still believe that when a corporation knowingly screws people to make a profit they should be held accountable for whatever the jury aggrees on. I have not been on such a jury, but I have talked to a few people that have. They said that they upped the pain/suffering, etc only because they wanted the victims to get an x amount and the lawyers would get a huge cut out of the total award. With limits, those corporations get their pencil pushers and decide how many times they can be sued while continuing their ways. Making a hundred million if profits knowing they can only be sued for 10 million when a few people die is a no brainer course of action. For me "intent" should be used as a factor in lawsuits. We all make mistakes that we should pay for and the price should be within reason, but some courses of actions should not have an award limit.

Maybe the best approach is to have the bar assosiation limit the amount of lawyers, like the AMA limits the amount of doctors we can have a better balance as civil lawyers would be too busy pursuing cases with merrit and would not have the time for the frivolous ones.

[Taurkon]

2004 Infiniti G35 sedan - sport
2005 Cadillac CTS-V (nope, I am not an old man. 400hp was what did the trick)
2000 Ford Expedition

[gunnut]

Originally Posted by bonehead

Perhaps the question should be, "How long are you going to moan over the unions." Again, they are not responsible for the higher healthcare. The healthcare system in the U.S. needs a major overhaul. That would benefit the workers, and the companies who employ them.?

Just a quick hijack of the thread.

The healthcare needs to be privatized. The way we buy healthcare has to change. Government needs to get out of providing healthcare.

I read an article that touched on how we buy and spend insurance money. Our concept is: do everything, the insurance will pay for it.

That's exactly the problem. We as consumers are used to pass on the cost to the insurance companies. Not knowing the insurance companies will just turn around and charge all of us more. The biggest benefactors are the doctors charging $60 for a 5 min visit, no joke.

Let's start a new thread to debate this topic. This thread is about cars.

[Wraith601]

I drive a 2002 Ford Escape.

[dundonrl]

2003 Ford Mustang SVT Cobra
2001 Ford Explorer Sport (2 door) 4x4

one gets me around on the highway quite nicely, 372 hp to the ground will do that (not bad for a 100% stock car)

the other goes reasonably good off road, and when I do get stuck, the 9500 lb winch on the front ensures that I'll get unstuck in short order..

[Draconion]

I have (That is the family has)

1. Maruti Van:The first car we had, we brought it in 1999, before which we used to circus around in a scooter..all four of us. It was a running joke in the regiment. The vans just 800cc and doesnot have Airconditioning, but is fuel efficient. My mom drives it now.

2.Mahindra Scorpio: This SUV we bought in 2005 and is really nice, dad used to drive it a lot earlier since the company paid for the diesel, but eversince he's got a company vehicle he dosent drive it anymore...I'm trying to con him into letting me drive it. (After I learn how to drive that is...)

3.Maruti Esteem:Company vehicle. Dad drives it.

[CMartel]

Originally Posted by Jay

I own a 98 BMW 328i, its been 6 years I'm driving that and I'm still not bored with it I do get a little irritated as I have to fill in a tank of Super Unleaded once a week, but other than that its all good. Oh and my eyes are set for the new 335i

I had a '96 BMW 328is. Picked it up at the factory in Munich, sold it a couple years ago after I got married and had two kids and a dog. Loved it. Never a day went by where I regretted buying it.

Now I drive a new Acura MDX. Well, my wife drives it. I usually drive my 97 Honda Accord. oh well...

[JBG]

3 days ago I picked up an NB Mazda MX5 1.8l 6 speed with 55k for A$25K. My shopping trolley/utility Nissan Pulsar 1.6 ( my fourth Nissan ) was squashed by a falling tree during the Sydney storms of a month ago and I wanted something to DRIVE just for the sake of driving. Find a good road and give it a go and it leaves a very big smile on your face.

You'd like it Big K!!

Jonathan

[Malayali]

2003 Bmw M3 Dinan