BSR

Here are just two of the "fringe" articles I found. One in National Review, written mostly in response to Michael Moore's fawning over the Cuban system. It's from 12 years ago, but trust me, things in Cuba don't change much. Here's another one from this year by the Foundation for Economic Education, a libertarian think tank. What evidence have you provided to prove your point? Maybe Katie Couric's sycophantic praise for Cuba's health care, as if the communists let her or any other journalist see the truth. Foreign journalists are never left to their own devices or allowed to investigate on their own. They see & hear only what the totalitarian regime wants them to see. If you speak to Cuban-Americans who visit the island regularly, who know what's really going on because they speak directly with their family & friends, as opposed to an apparatchik information minister, they will tell you a very different story.

And what makes you think that the population level health indicators that are collected and disseminated by a totalitarian regime are accurate? Here is an interesting bit from one of the articles that I link to in the next post: "Cuban doctors were re-categorizing neonatal deaths as late fetal deaths in order for doctors to meet government targets for infant mortality. …Physicians often perform abortions without clear consent of the mother, raising serious issues of medical ethics, when ultrasound reveals fetal abnormalities because ‘otherwise it might raise the infant mortality rate’." Hey, did you know that "gullible" isn't in the dictionary?

Leftists trip all over themselves to push Communist Party propaganda on Cuban health care because they want the government to take over the health system here in the US. Margaret Thatcher noted that the reason Reagan was able to do so much more in turning back liberalism than she could was Britain's nationalized health care system. If you look past the Castro agitprop, you'll see a very different picture of Cuban health care. Here is an x-ray room for ordinary Cubans. Note the collapsing ceiling and the ancient equipment. http://testing.therealcuba.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/HCQ2.jpg Here is where your x-rays are developed. You wonder if it even has reliable electricity. http://testing.therealcuba.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/HCQ1.jpg The state-of-the-art emergency room http://testing.therealcuba.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/HCQ4.jpg The visitors bathroom, note the lack of soap. http://testing.therealcuba.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/HCQ7.jpg A quick Google search of "truth about Cuban health care" will provide an abundance of articles that quickly dispel the Communist myths that leftists bend over backward to perpetuate. I would link a number of those articles here, except that I know that not one leftist will bother to click open a single article. Leftists would much rather believe the Communist lies, because those lies serve their own selfish benefit.

I read once that in the US some hitmen are contracted for as little as $100. Desperate meth addicts don't need much convincing apparently. In contrast, eight grand in the DR is a king's ransom. It sounds like Big Papi will make a full recovery. I am so happy to see the Red Sox reach out the way they did. As a die-hard Red Sox fan, I will always love David Ortiz.

We all know how much you hate the US. Sheesh, give it a rest.

At even the lowest "tier" of American health care, the doctors all have their own stethoscopes and can dispense basic meds like aspirin & penicillin. Cuban doctors, not so much.

I'm not so sure about the quality of health care for Cubans. Cuba has a two-tier health care system: a first-rate one for foreigners with money (and the well-connected communists, no doubt) and a very different one for everyday Cubans. Yes, doctors in Cuba are very well trained, but they lack technology, medicines, and even basic equipment. In conversations I had with two women who visit family in Cuba regularly, health care for ordinary Cubans sounds awfully sub-standard. X-rays are hard to come by, drugs are scarce, and some doctors don't even have their own stethoscope. Need an MRI? Pffft

The listing you posted is a co-op. I believe the maintenance fee for a NYC co-op unit differs from the HOA fee associated with condos. Condos in NYC list a condo fee (what the rest of the country more commonly calls the HOA) and monthly property tax separately. The monthly maintenance fee a co-op owner pays includes the property taxes owed by the cooperative. When you consider the sky-high property taxes in NYC (the city gets ~60% of its revenue from property taxes) then add the monthly building costs, $4000 doesn't seem that high to me. As many others in this thread have pointed out, a big old building in NYC (with its sky-high labor costs) has so many expenses that would never occur to you. My dad lived in NYC for 11 years. The doorman mentioned how much it cost to repair the two elevators that recently broken down. I forget the exact amount, but my dad said it almost gave him a heart attack. When his condo fee bumped up later that year, at least it was easy to understand why.

I don't see how dancers are employees since they can work six nights a week or zero, stay from open to close or just an hour. Is there a single employee in America who can just tell his boss, "Nah, I don't feel like working this week"? Only independent contractors have that kind of flexibility. Then again, my opinion doesn't count for sh*t, and the courts have made their ruling. It sounds like some ex-dancers, perhaps with an ax to grind, saw a chance to make some easy money. Crapfest! Ah well, hopefully SR survives the setback & forges on.

Pretty much every day for 25+ years, I started every morning with a quad espresso. I stopped the habit only after my fancy superautomatic died & I didn't feel like dishing out a grand (at least!) for a new one. I never thought about it, but my breath probably wasn't the best. Yikes! Maybe the old superautomatic's death was a blessing in disguise.

Although I don't shop at Whole Foods (haven't even stepped foot in one, actually), I am grateful for the impact it's had on the competition. I do most of my grocery shopping at Sam's Club. Even though I live alone, I eat the same food so often (eggs, salmon, chicken, veggies) that I can buy in bulk without wasting anything. When I was a Sam's member 14 years ago, the quality was so mediocre that I stopped going. After reactivating my membership again just recently, I am wowed by how much the quality of fresh meats & produce has improved. Granted, other factors might be at play, like competition from Costco. But I can't help but think that much of the eye-popping difference is thanks to Whole Foods & the pressure it put on the marketplace to up its game.

What @Kenny condemns as gross speculation, I consider to be fundamental common sense. For example, it just doesn't make sense that someone goes out for Subway at 2 am in -20°. It just doesn't make sense that two Trumpers braved hypothermia & frostbite to stroll about the streets of the gayborhood at that hour. It doesn't make sense that (according to video surveillance), the Trumpers were able to assault Smollett (which involved pouring bleach on Smollett, hanging a noose around his neck & kicking him in the ribs), Smollett was able to fight back, gather himself, and recover his Subway sandwich all in the span of 60 seconds. And whaddya know, the Chicago Police Dept. has arrested Smollett for a filing a false police report. If you know anything about how big city police departments work in such a high-profile case, the CPD went forward with the arrest of Smollett only after they were pretty damn sure that a conviction was a slam dunk.

There were 3 seasons of Merlí, but apparently Netflix bought the rights for only Season 1. I have no idea if they plan to buy Seasons 2 & 3. You just never know with Netflix. On one hand, Netflix likes to buy TV series from Spain because they're a bargain (much cheaper than producing their own Spanish-language shows) and because the number of Spanish-speaking Netflix subscribers in the US is large and growing. On the other hand, Merlí is dubbed into Spanish (original language is Catalan). I don't know about other people, but dubbing drives me crazy. By the way, do they show the Catalan or Spanish version on Netflix? Or do they give you a choice? If you're reading English subtitles, I guess it doesn't matter.

When I visited the Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum (in OKC), I was surprised that they devoted a few exhibits to the role of prostitutes in the Wild West. Apparently, even small, remote towns had their fair share of working girls. I'm sure the ladies took care of the boys in town, but cowboys lived lives of penury & would have had difficulty scraping together even a modest fee. Plus they spent most of their time out on the range without a woman in sight. What happened out there we'll never know.

1. I would hire you in a nanosecond if we were in the same city. 2. Your face looks different in some pictures, leaner in some, fuller in others. The difference is enough that I kind of wondered if it was the same guy. 3. As much as I enjoyed looking at your pictures (each and every one of them LOL), I have to wonder if less is more. It's great that you give prospective clients a good idea of what you look like, but maybe your ad would be more effective if you left us browsers "wanting a little more" ... just my sense.

Since I have a wicked sweet tooth, it's been a decades-long battle to resist sugar. One thing I have managed to avoid is soda because it is the junkiest of junk food, all sugar yet zero nutrition. I used to drink diet soda until I read somewhere that despite the calorie difference diet soda is useless for weight loss. I also just had a feeling that diet soda had to be really bad for you. The science has since confirmed my instincts. I also avoid fruit juices as much as soda. While OJ & other juices might have some nutritional value, their sugar content rivals or even surpasses sugar-packed soda. I even avoid fruit because the fructose sparks my cravings for more sugar (ice cream is my kryptonite). I figure I get plenty of vitamins & antioxidants from veggies. Besides just watching out for sugar, one should also pay attention to the glycemic index of what you eat because a lot of food is surprisingly high-glycemic. Corn chips have a glycemic index rating of 105(!), Stoned Wheat Thins 96, and a marketed-as-healthy Nutri-Grain bar 94. Compare those ratings to jelly beans at 80. Who would've guessed?

At my old tennis club, there was a group of women who played during the day while the kids were at school. I called them the "wealthy housewives set" because it was a rather posh club, and I noticed what cars they drove. BTW, I only wished I were a wealthy housewife; alas, I was a semi-poor grunt who worked nights. Anyway, I had a discussion recently with a friend who doesn't think Mrs. Bezos should get anything but whatever Jeff Bezos gave her during the marriage because if feminists believe in true equality, then husbands shouldn't fork over half the assets (which he alone earned) or alimony. I brought up the wealthy housewives set and that none of them would have agreed to give up her own career if her 50-something husband could just skip off with a half-his-age mistress at any given moment with financial impunity. On one hand, it does seem a bit excessive for MacKenzie Bezos to get $75 billion out of the divorce. On the other hand, it seems outrageous that any wealthy man experiencing a mid-life crisis can leave his wife with nothing, after she gave up her own career, supported his career, took care of the home front, and raised his children. While it's far from a black & white issue, if I had to favor one position over another, I'd say she deserves half of everything.

No skin, not even a kiss, but this has to be my all-time favorite gay short. Click on the top right corner to get English subtitles.

An uncle of mine used to wait tables at a restaurant in Times Square. He said that on NYE, they guard the bathroom like Ft. Knox, strictly for customers only. So no, definitely no public bathrooms. Guys in Times Square just pee on the pavement. Not sure what women do. Probably the same, just shielded by friends as best they can. Not that I was ever that tempted to go do NYE in Times Square while I lived in NYC, but the thought of wading ankle-deep in piss definitely killed any inkling of desire.

Many aspects of English make it difficult to learn, but I would think one of the toughest is which syllable in a word to emphasize. French is super easy, the last syllable (any exceptions, French speakers?). Spanish is pretty easy. There is a set of rules for emphasis that you learn as a beginner and are easy to master. All exceptions to the rule will simply have an accent over the vowel of the syllable to be emphasized (like énfasis). But English words, no rhyme or reason, as if every word had its own unique rule of pronunciation.

So sorry that happened to you, but so grateful that you posted your trip report. It sounds like SR has changed, a lot, and much for the worse. I have a cousin in Atlanta that I visited a couple of times even though "visiting my cousin" was really just an excuse to go to SR. My cousin is a perfectly nice guy, but we're not really that close. Looks like it might be a while before I visit him again.

One of the most interesting characters I met on the Strip was an elderly Chinese woman who was a card-counter almost her entire adult life. She moved to Las Vegas in 1961 with her two children. Her deadbeat husband had left her, and in those days, getting child support through the legal system was impossible. She couldn't get a regular job in the casinos because she claimed "I have slant eyes." So she figured out how to count cards. Back in those days, "the boys" ran the casinos, not big corporations. Since Las Vegas was more of a small town back then, everybody knew who she was and what she was doing but tolerated it because they knew her situation. She did get banned, all the time and by every casino in town, but back then all she had to do was stay away for a couple of months, and then they'd let her play again, not like today's lifetime bans. By counting cards, she raised two kids, bought a house, and sent the kids to UNLV so that they wouldn't have to end up as card counters. Now the two kids support their mom because she doesn't do much card-counting any more. She's the one who told me that those MIT kids ruined it for everybody else. She told me about her wildest night. She went to the casino with three hundred bucks (remember, this is 1961, so factor in inflation). She had a bad night and ended up losing it all. She kept eight quarters in her purse as emergency money. She played a slot with the quarters and ended up hitting one for a hundred bucks. With that hundred, she went back to the tables, had a rollicking night, and ended up winning $5500! I was born in 1964, but I'm pretty sure $5500 was more than the average annual salary back in 1961.

You see and hear a lot when you live in Las Vegas, especially if you go to the casinos as often as I do. I once met a guy who was, at least for a time, a professional card-counter. He paid his entire way through UC Santa Barbara by playing blackjack. When I said that I thought the MIT guys ruined it for everybody, he said that you could still do it but had to be super careful. He works a day job now and plays blackjack just for fun and for some pocket money. If you're ever in the unenviable position of trying to pawn your watch for gambling money (or money for any other purposes), be advised that if you bring in a brand new Rolex to a pawn shop, they'll probably offer you only 10% of the retail price. Yikes!

I've lived half my life in poker rooms, or so it seems sometimes. All traditional poker rooms in the US are non-smoking. Most rooms, unfortunately, are adjoining the main casino, so a lot of smoke does drift in, but at least you don't have to put up with the guy next to you chain-smoking. I've never been to the other type of card room, where games like pai gow are played.

What's a "card room"? Does that mean a poker room? I can't think of what else it could refer to.