Penny

Grim Galaxy: Shots and Chances

Junebug blinked as the stasis field around her vanished. She sneezed violently as in-rushing air gusted dust into her sinus. Fortunately her helmet visor maintained a low grade electric charge that repelled the particles and kept the face shield clean.

"More Goddess Cursed AI's," she grumbled as she vaulted down from the raised platform and landed with a clang, her combat books waking echos across the deck plates as moved at a tactical jog towards the door Drake had vanished in with, what she assumed, was the core of the facility.

"Can't it just close the doors on this asshole?" The moved into the hallway at a jog but the voice, seemingly omnipresent in the facility, followed them.

"System degradation over, the centuries has rendered this impossible Consort," the mechanical voice went on, with no more or less emotion that it had possessed when it spoke of the destruction of the system. Sayeeda was running through the corridors now, there were no obvious turns to slow her and while the corridor snaked back and forth there were no options for exploration.

"Consort!? She spluttered in outrage as they broke into a large room that seemed to be filled with some sort of statuary, still in the same alien metallic style.

"You are the Consort of the Representative are you not?"

"I don't think we need to go that far," Sayeeda said dryly as she moved through the forest of eerie statues, the muzzle of her submachine gun sweeping from side to side.

"Booster bring up thermal at a 25 percent mask," she instructed her helmet AI and the world took on the subtle shadings of color based of the rates of differntal cooling. The effect was slightly nausating with so much cold metal becoming tinted with icy blue. Neil had a warm glow of body heat about him, as would Drake when they caught up with him.

"Would you perfer a different form of address Consort?" the AI inquired polite.

"Shut the fuck up," Sayeeda snapped, she didn't have breath to talk with a centuries dead computer and she certainly didn't want to tip off. WHANGG!! Sparks showered her as she burst through a door at the end of the hall of statues. The were in a large room that reminded Sayeeda of a chapel or maybe a particular ornate mess hall. Strange alien designs hung on the walls and long benches lay in curiously asymmetrical rows here and there a console station flickered with the odd purplish light and strange symbols they had seen in the control room and at the keypad. CLANG! CLANG! Rounds ricocheted off the wall beside her as she through herself forward into a diving roll. Drake stood across the room frantically tapping at a keypad with one hand while firing one handed across the room at her, his face a mask of fear and concentration. His first shot had been lucky Sayeeda realised, Drake was comfortable with guns but even she would have struggled to hit a surprise target across a room while her attention was focused on another task. Well, maybe she would have struggled.

"How the fuck did you get out!" Drake shrieked his voice high with panic as he frantically hammered at the keypad.

"Not really relevant!" she shoulded back, glancing up to make sure Neil had made it through the doorway safely. To her relief he had.

"You aren't taking me back, there is too much work to do!"

"Full disclosure Drake, I don't give a damn about your work and my contract with your father dosen't specify what condition your kneecaps need to be in!"

"You don't understand with the knowledge of this facility..." she came up in a crouch sighted and fired across the room, two sharp snaps as the electromotive weapon drove the light metal slugs up the barrel faster than the speed of sound. There was a diffuse red flash and Drake dropped to the floor, shrieking in agony, and clutching at his lower thigh where her shots had torn to neat holes. Blood stained his finger and he whimpered for a moment.

"Crazy fucking bitch," he whined and then to his evident shock the door behind him hissed open.

@POOHEAD189

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

but I think they're doing protest exactly right. It's nonviolent. It's not even that disrespectful. It hurts nobody but themselves (and the league owners, but they've always got that option to fire, so it goes right back on the player).

Kneeling during the anthem to protest justicial inequality? Brave. Kneeling to protest a president you don't like? Childish.

@mdk

So much agreeing with MDK! WHAT IS HAPPENING!

So.... where's the line, do you figure? Open-ended question to all.

@mdk

We can all agree that the players as individuals have free speech rights and I am glad that they are using their celebrity to forward the debate in such a public and effective fashion.

That being said the NFL absolutely retains the right to discipline them if they disagree with the behavior. When they are kneeling for the national anthem they are doing it as NFL employees and its contravening policy the NFL is well within its rights to take action. It dosen't seem like the NFL is inclined to do that and there is apparently no clear prohibition preventing them from expressing themselves in this way.

My employers have a clause in my contract which stipulates that I will do nothing to bring the company into disrepute. I would assume from former domestic violence cases that the NFL does something similar. Its really up to the employer to set codes of conduct ESPECIALLY at work.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

<Snipped quote by Penny>

....you sure you're not a republican?

@mdk

Very ;)

I don't have some weird ideological fetish that requires a particular top down government only solution, I just want people to be able to get quality healthcare without it bankrupting them. Ill pull together some thoughts when my brain is a little less scrambled by 8 hours of orientation.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

<Snipped quote>
Gotcha! I'll do the exact same thing for 0.099999999.... F35s and pocket the money myself!

@Andreyich

Nonsense I'll get it as a diversity hire!

Damnit that made me laugh :P

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

I will pose a contrary question then. Can you name one positive statistic overall from the Department of Veteran's Affairs' medical coverage, other than the fact it at all exists? I mean something consistent and measurable that does not fall into this story of loathing? I have never, not once in my life, met a veteran or service member who did not encounter tremendous difficulty - notably waiting times and quality of care - with the Department of Veteran's Affairs. I have instead heard many stories of them living purposefully outside of coverage by the hospital so they are forced to get referrals to practitioners who are private sector in order to get better care.

@The Harbinger of Ferocity

I've never had anything to do with the VA. I'm willing to take your word for it that the system dosen't work as currently constituted.

Ok just got home and haven’t had a chance to do any research but I’m going to go ahead and assume that everything you have told me and everything I’ve heard in the media is true. Also the goal of this is to fix the VA rather than provide true universal healthcare for non veterans. For the sake of simplicity im going to use veterans as a catchall rather than continually differentiating for dependents, tri care, ect.


Step 1: Hire me at a cost of 0.1 F35s a year.

Step 2: Transmute VA benefits/Tricare into the equivalent of full coverage private insurance at 100% reimbursement and no co pay. Reimburse this in the same way as private insurance rather than the medicare model, I understand why medicare works the way it does, but it is going to be counterproductive in this particular interest. In the short term this will lead to over-billing but the primary goal is to make veterans a preferred class of patient. In addition to traditional reimbursement attach a bonus to all care provided to veterans. It need not necessarily be a huge bonus in absolute terms.

Step 3: Remove all restrictions on where VA insurance can be used and give the patient absolute freedom to seek care where it makes sense for them to do so. America has a strength in the private healthcare sector and that should be leveraged. There is no reason that ancillary services such as blood work, imaging ect need to be done at va facilities and many therapies and procedures will make more sense to administer through existing private or state facilities rather than at dedicated VA sites. Private/State providers and facilities would collect the aforementioned bonus. If a veteran had the work done at a VA facility it could be returned to them, perhaps via a tax credit. This means it is in the veterans interest to use the VA when it makes sense and it encourages private providers to take on veterans.

Step 4: Establish additional federal incentives (again perhaps tax incentives) to take part in voluntary Federal programs for providers who service large (in relative terms) numbers of VA insured patients. This would also require additional federal oversight to ensure the absence of fraud and the quality of service and patient outcomes.

Step 5: Gut the existing VA establishment. As I understand it the President has given authority to terminate senior VA officials with cause. This should be expanded and they should go through with a hatchet and clean out the incompetent. Those who did stuff like falsify wait times and neglect patients should be punished to the full extent of the law. There is no excuse for the sorts criminal negligence I have heard reported. I’m not assigning guilt but sunlight is the best disinfectant and examples need to be made where deliberate neglect or malpractice exists.

Step 6: Restructure actual VA facilities to be more closely focused on the types of procedures which existing providers are ill equipped to handle but are needed by VA patients in disproportionate volume. Physical therapy for battle injuries, PTSD treatment ect ect. Existing facilities should function better once the private and state system takes of some of the burden.

Step 7: Replace federal employees with contractors and enforce oversight. As I understand it it is way easier to remove a contractor than a traditional federal employee. Set clear and achievable goals for categories such as patient care standards/weight times ect.

Step 8: Give broad policy direction responsibility to regional and/or facility directors to address the specific demands of given regions. Obviously coordinating care in Alaska presents different challenges to doing so in the Boston Metro and doctors and administrators should have the freedom to address them. They would also be operating within clear metrics and subject to review and eventual removal if they aren’t able to deliver.

Step 9: Plan for the future. Build new hospitals. Improve scholarships for veterans and perhaps others who are willing to commit to long return of service obligations for the VA. Set up a reviewing body with the explicit goal of ensuring that admin costs are held in check and that resources are focused on patient/caregiver interaction, rather than pushing paper.

In overall terms this will shift current VA patients into the private system. That will make private medical providers happy and shouldn’t threaten the medical insurance lobby as it dosen’t take money directly from their pockets (not yet anyway). It will hopefully clear the current glut of patients and allow the current facilities to function well enough to allow restructuring. It should be palatable enough to the states as it would be proposed by a Republican administration and there is a wellspring of political capital to be gained in both aiding veterans and in addressing the VA scandal that can be pinned on the previous administration. There is a question as to whether putting so many veterans into the public system will stress capacity. I don’t personally believe so but that isn’t exactly my area of expertise.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

sample size of one, but frankly it's the one I care the most about.

@mdk

I've worked in systems that provide high quality healthcare to millions without bankrupting them. That make it possible to get real care rather than cluttering up the ERs with non critical patients, that save thousands of lives every single year. That is my sample size of one.

The VA is shit? You had a terrible experience? I am sorry for you, but even near perfect systems have malpractice and incompetence. You think the US can't do better than it currently does? That is conservative BS. You want to sit around and whine that it can't be done? That is your right but I will be out there advocating for a better system for my patients.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

It's also because honestly no, we can't handle it. We're political children more concerned with soundbites than policy, and we'll vote for anybody who says the right thing.

@mdk

Not really sure where to go from there.

We're political children more concerned with soundbites than policy.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

The article says it was the home owners son, probably a teenager himself. Jittery situation, easy to see it going south. It is too bad but these kids were in his house and armed.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

<Snipped quote by Penny>
I'm just bored, and Spam is pretty much dead, so you know...

@catchamber

Haha I'll confess to an element of that as well.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

@Penny : You are basically Aliens

@POOHEAD189 : The Power of Friendship!