A) We were not in a recession at the end of Clinton's second term and no economist nor fairminded individual could assert as much. We simply did not meet the economic conditions for what is termed a recession. If that was a recession, we are now in a logarithmically amplified depression.

B) those numbers are insane, and even a conservative would have to scoff at, especially, the 30,000 dollar line. As someone who made about 35,000 that year, I can tell you: I did not pay 8 thousand in taxes. But you need not rely on my take on it. The chart originated from data from the Tax Foundation and, besides the values being extrapolated by poor math, also failed to account for inflation versus the real value of the dollar.

Couldn't find what I had been reading, but in short summary: http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/show/22958.html ... I was half recollecting correctly regarding inflation, if not spot on:

http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/show/22958.html

Right, it was that besides insane calculations, the marginal tax rate brackets shift upwards and hence a 30,000 dollar earner may well have dropped into a lower marginal tax rate by this date anyway.

What was I thinking? Value of the dollar... well, goes to show it helps to compose oneself before spouting off at the lip. Not that this would apply to you, gneubeck, inasmuch as you are cutting and pasting your tax postings anyway.

I am sorry about your hard luck story and the wrinkles, but firstly, no one has stipulated 5000 dollars a year inasmuch as the prices would be negotiated between the government and insurance system we have.

Theoretically, bringing down medical costs is possible with goverment assurance that a certain fixed number of people will be 'purchasing' ... 100 new customers at a lower rate is more money than 50 at a higher rate, essentially. This is why it is cheaper for large organizations to ensure insurance than for a single person or even family. Moreover, one is assuming as-yet-to-be-determined provisions and grants will be given for those living under the poverty line.

Moreover, it is exactly people who don't have health insurance who are helping to aid rising costs by NOT being covered and then being unable to pay. This is a vicious circle where costs rise to account for non-payment and emergency service and as a result there are more of these a year.

I would suggest it is you who do not see things for how they are.

"Obviously, you can't just use Viagra. They tried. Believe me, they tried."

What? That makes no scientific sense at all. Catagorically it is wrong. Viagra, and I know this from personal experience works just as well, for its intended purpose, on women as well as it does for me. That is, Viagra is a vasodilator. A woman who takes it should well find that her labia nad surrounding tissue is engorged and some pleasurable benefits can result as well.

To make the obvious clear, viagra was never intended to increase sexual desire, but act as a vasodilator to aid in erections. Why people say 'female viagra' when what they mean is a sexual stimulant is beyond me. But, trust me, Viagra can work for it's intended purpose for women as well as men.

"I have sadly realized that most people are more interested in "American Idol" and Katie Couric's love life"

What? who is couric doing now?

I have been quietly reading your messages for months. What I want to know is: what the heck happened to you? The severity of your rhetoric on so-called 'feminism' exceeds what I might assume to be basic intellectual challenge to questionable tenets or essential conservative reaction. Bad divorce or something?

With all respect to the existence of some form of skin privilige, Ms Hoffman exemplifies exactly what has brought feminism as a progressive movement to its... ahem... knees: An utter inability to express complicated concepts in a manner that doesn't sound absurd and extremist. If Hoffman spent as much time discussing and considering how to comunicate difficult to express concepts as she did attempting to align herself with emerging ideologies, methinks progress would be greatly lubricated.

But this adherence to such bogus 'sciences' as Whiteness Studies is complete intellectual bankruptcy: Any 'studies' that will only be able to ever comunicate with people who are already adherants of it's tenets is one which has failed to make itself a 'study' of any kind.

"I think women do have a particular point of view, uh, it isn't competitive with men at all, uh, I think they're less romantic then men, less emotional, much more practical, uh, much more independent then men are" -- Pearl Buck

Erm? ... It wasn't just Wallace who was full of it. Not to mention that your own ad hominen attack of Wallace by dint of his show's association with Parliament is about as low brow as you can go. Can you at least TRY to maintain a facade of objective thinking?

Having watched the interview, I haven't any idea what you are so impressed by. I find myself less likely, than anything, to read ms Buck's two books I have on my book shelf. Product of her era she may be, but she manages, at once, to be to be frivolously close minded, and demeaning to both men and women (Women are naturally creative... they create children... egads, what twaddle).

As an incidental note or no relation I was in Ms Bucks former house / office last year in Philadephia.... massive chandelier...