Daily Roundup, funny.

OK, and now for something a little lighter:

Tom and Ray Take on Cars and Dating

As part of our ongoing effort to help you understand what statement your date is trying to make with his or her car, we asked Tom and Ray of Car Talk to give their take on these cars. Here’s what they said.

Date Cars Driven by Men
[…]
Hummer H2: “You mean there are people in the world other than me?” Self-centered poser.
Dodge Grand Caravan: “Have I told you about my other family?” Somewhere, this guy has at least three or four kids you haven’t seen.
[…]

Date Cars Driven by Women
[…]
Ford F-250: “I like horses.” Warning: Horses are expensive, and you compare poorly to a stallion.
Porsche Boxster S: “I am extremely high maintenance. You should see my jewelry budget.”

[…] elisions mine, just sharing a few favorites there.

For the H2, they didn’t take the obvious line about a man compensating for the size of his equipment; I’m not sure if I’m disappointed they missed such an obvious one, or if it would have been a cheap shot.

They also have links to the Cars.com blogs on similar stereotypes.

Daily Roundup, tragic.

Tragic first – we need a real national health system to help prevent crap like this:
When staying alive means going bankrupt

LOMPOC, Calif. – Kathleen Aldrich, financially ruined by two bouts with ovarian cancer, is not who you might assume she is.

She raised three kids as a single mom. She worked hard for years. She had good jobs. She paid her bills. She lived in a nice house and drove a nice car. She had a decent credit rating. She had health insurance.

Now she has a record of bankruptcy and is the embodiment of the fear that nags at millions of U.S. families: that they are but one medical calamity away from losing everything. Like Aldrich, they — and perhaps you — could be.

The meat of the story isn’t captured by the intro though – to sum up, basically, she got screwed over by the combination of insurance companies and doctors not coordinating well, and by switching insurance during treatment. I’m reminded of my own “unpaid medical bill” situation, where the *bleep*ing hospital in Colorado, and (slightly less *bleeping*) HIP were unwilling to talk to get the bill paid. Much smaller bill, but the hospital was still in essentially the same position of throwing the bill to collections and refusing to deal with it.

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