Firstly, you're implying that a common pickpocket with access to a handgun would rob you at gunpoint, chancing some serious jailtime (having a gun while comiting a crime is like an automatic 10 years in the US) + increased risk of getting caught (you know right away you've been robbed, unlike if he snuck your wallet out with no fuss), rather than what amounts to catch and release if he tries to just sneak off with the wallet while being unarmed.
And then you imply that the guy who's planning on stealing your wallet at gunpoint is going to care if his handgun is legal or not?
Same thing happened with my dentist when I went in to get a checkup/cleaning/filling without insurance. The price went from ~1500 with insurance (I checked and it was on par with what my insurance provider had paid them before) to 800 when I told them I was paying cash. Then I mysteriously ended up with a credit to my account that happened to be 2 dollars more than the cost of paying out of pocket to get my teeth cleaned, which I was able to use 6 months later for just that.
I'm not sure if they're in the habit of soaking the insurance companies, or maybe there really is that much overhead associated with insurance claims. I guess it could also have been that they felt bad for me and wanted to keep my business (I've been going to that dentist for 20 years).
I've read a lot of things about specific intelligence and idiot savants. Some of the more interesting cases were people who appeared almost mentally retarded in pretty much all areas, except they could do calendar calculations in their head just as fast as a person inputting them into a computer.
Things like that have always led me to believe that everyone has a set brain capacity (some more than others), and then from there it can be allocated across different areas such that total capacity isn't exceeded. The more specialized the area, the more power can be allocated to it at the expense of other areas. That can lead to two people with equal brain capacity, one being a well balanced individual, and the other being an absolute genius when it comes to math yet having zero social skills. Or the inverse of that: people who are really nice, caring, and empathetic, but forget trying to teach them anything sciencey.
Eh? Prop 13 is an example of direct democracy gone right.
All of the financial issues this state is having are due to a combination of corrupt officials and mismanaged/badly allocated funds.
If the spending problem was actually under control, people would be a lot more receptive to new taxes.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't get it.
Firstly, you're implying that a common pickpocket with access to a handgun would rob you at gunpoint, chancing some serious jailtime (having a gun while comiting a crime is like an automatic 10 years in the US) + increased risk of getting caught (you know right away you've been robbed, unlike if he snuck your wallet out with no fuss), rather than what amounts to catch and release if he tries to just sneak off with the wallet while being unarmed.
And then you imply that the guy who's planning on stealing your wallet at gunpoint is going to care if his handgun is legal or not?
Same thing happened with my dentist when I went in to get a checkup/cleaning/filling without insurance. The price went from ~1500 with insurance (I checked and it was on par with what my insurance provider had paid them before) to 800 when I told them I was paying cash. Then I mysteriously ended up with a credit to my account that happened to be 2 dollars more than the cost of paying out of pocket to get my teeth cleaned, which I was able to use 6 months later for just that.
I'm not sure if they're in the habit of soaking the insurance companies, or maybe there really is that much overhead associated with insurance claims. I guess it could also have been that they felt bad for me and wanted to keep my business (I've been going to that dentist for 20 years).
I've read a lot of things about specific intelligence and idiot savants. Some of the more interesting cases were people who appeared almost mentally retarded in pretty much all areas, except they could do calendar calculations in their head just as fast as a person inputting them into a computer. Things like that have always led me to believe that everyone has a set brain capacity (some more than others), and then from there it can be allocated across different areas such that total capacity isn't exceeded. The more specialized the area, the more power can be allocated to it at the expense of other areas. That can lead to two people with equal brain capacity, one being a well balanced individual, and the other being an absolute genius when it comes to math yet having zero social skills. Or the inverse of that: people who are really nice, caring, and empathetic, but forget trying to teach them anything sciencey.
Eh? Prop 13 is an example of direct democracy gone right. All of the financial issues this state is having are due to a combination of corrupt officials and mismanaged/badly allocated funds. If the spending problem was actually under control, people would be a lot more receptive to new taxes.