What should a politician do [when finally the Republic is saved, and we can take a breath and figure out how to prevent this from ever happening again]?
(1) every immigrant on a green card is immediately fast-tracked for citizenship
(2) every immigrant (with or without visa) is similarly fast-tracked for green card, with visa-holders going first.
(3) shift all funds from ICE to visa & citizenship processing
Why? B/c if they're gonna fuck with our base, we're gonna fuck with theirs. We need *patriotic* Americans, not a buncha Putin-felchers.
On lots of this stuff, like in the OP or school funding in poor areas, you've got to assume that the large numbers of people have decided to let themselves become worse off as long as somebody of a different race is even worser off.
This shit drives me so crazy. Where does MS-13 come from? It started in Los Angeles as a local gang. So did 18th Street, named for the 18th Street near my house (which is now huge in destroying Guatemala and El Salvador and Honduras). Literally for years the DOJ's big policy was to take people who were criminals in the US and deportable and send them back to Central America. So we gave them our gangs, literally. The DOJ's other big policy was to pursue the drug war. Drug sales ultimately to the US is how those guys make their money. So, in essence, every part of the gang-driven disaster in Central America is caused directly by the domestic policy of the United States government and the Department of Justice specifically. And not in some vague amorphous "capitalist imperialism is bad" sense. In terms of direct policy of the federal Department of Justice with direct immediate results.
Then, later, the badguys we literally dumped into Central America are murdering people in order to sell drugs to us. So kids, who are sick of seeing their families and friends murdered, try to escape. They try the US. And what do we do? Our federal government stops them at the border and does everything in its power to kick them out.
We're a fucking shit country of disgusting people and our policy in this area has been a fucking disaster for years, of course made worse by the fact that we now have absolute racists running the show. Cost/benefit, sure, but this is literally our problem in a very specific sense that goes way beyond that.
Right, like this is the kind of monstrosity everyone's reasonable-LEO-friend/acquaintance would be an active supporter of.
"Of course we should deport them, they're criminals!"
5 - I dunno, some smart LEO-affiliated people I know opposed deportation for years (the alternative is to keep people in our prisons, or let them out here) precisely because of these kinds of transnational effects.
But I agree that most people in the US (even people who are sympathetic to immigrants) have a sense that this is other people's mess that's lapping up against our shores. But it's not.
It's our mess that we made ourselves and have a responsibility to clean up.
Too bad dousing everything with orange spray tan and Quarter Pounder with Cheese spittle doesn't clean anything.
Second everything RH says. I left the history out because I don't know much, and wanted to focus just on this particular self-defeatingness of MAGAism.
5: That's good. The one I knew would say, paraphrased
"Even if immigrants aren't more liable to commit crimes than anyone else, it makes sense to target the one who are actually committing crimes over citizen criminals because then we can deport them and get them out."
You don't always have to provide a correct answer on the first response.
I tried searching, but I just got Szilards and Strausses and things.
Yep. Have felt this for years & years (as have many others)--my personal name for this is "The Nine Shit Sandwich Theory of Politics"...
Oops--17 should be to 2 (did I do that right in the local dialect?)
You forgot to list your funding source. Or maybe I was supposed to put that in the abstract and the cock joke in here.
Disclosures: Your mother.
Affiliations: The same.
Law-enforcement officer.
I was thinking Low Earth Orbit and it made no sense at all.
Only one WHITE paper could get by this WHITE house: it would just say "build a wall" over and over.
Huh, I was convinced I'd read the phrase "white paper" but I guess it says "full paper". Anyway, don't build a wall or something.
Then, later, the badguys we literally dumped into Central America are murdering people in order to sell drugs to us. So kids, who are sick of seeing their families and friends murdered, try to escape. They try the US. And what do we do? Our federal government stops them at the border and does everything in its power to kick them out.
Don't forget that most of the weapons used in the murders are obtained from the US too.
24 last: I looked into that, and it doesn't seem to be true. Seemingly the biggest sources are government stockpiles and licensed owners, especially in Honduras. US gun laws are part of the problem but a very small part.
Where are the guns manufactured? And the ammo?
26: Everywhere. (PDF)
The sources of handguns are entirely different than those for assault rifles. Most handguns were purchased legally in the United States. While some are smuggled to the region, many more are licitly imported and only later diverted to illicit use.Which is consistent with these ATF numbers (PDF): ~40% of weapons originate in the US but only ~7%* trace to a US retail purchase. If one adds all the weapons where ATF couldn't trace a purchaser, that goes up to ~24%, but I've no idea how reasonable a move that would be. AFAICT good data just don't exist. This was the best I could find with light searching.
And ok, GY said "obtained from the US" and in a wide sense that might be true. But I think the picture people have in their heads (the picture I had before scratching) is individuals legally buying AR-15s in the US and Fedexing the parts south. That does happen, but apparently the major problem is actually companies selling thousands of handguns to police forces perfectly legally. One can fault US export controls there, but one has to fault the Central Americans for their management and gun laws too.
What's a LEO?
An ancient Roman lion. You throw your enemies to them.
IN ALL CAPS, BECAUSE THAT'S JUST HOW ROMANS ROLL.
Interesting short report on Fedex-style smuggling.
I thought I'd seen a few news stories in the last few years about AR-15s and similar weapons flooding into Mexico sourced from US gun stores but I can't be arsed to look for any links.
I mean the guns came from the US gun stores, not that the stories are sourced from them.
And, side-effects of the USAID programs:
In Guatemala, school directors' narratives reveal that incest is going on with alarming frequency, particularly in rural areas. Specifically, fathers have been found to be having sexual relations with their under-age daughters, thereby fathering their daughters' babies. School administrators have been reporting these instances to the appropriate judicial authorities.
You paid for school psychologists.
I guess it's only been a year and a half since the U.S. government position on incest switched to "Depends on how hot your daughter is."
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Anyone ever broken their wrist? How do you tell? Stupid bathtub in my apartment is elevated a good 2+ feet off the floor and I didn't notice the water on the floor when I got out.
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Probably should have dropped that in the WTFuckery thread.
The wrist has like a dozen bones anyway. You can't really break it as one more or less won't change anything.
"Have another drink and power it out" is underrated medical advice. Just keep thinking -- eh, it's probably fine.
I've sprained and also fractured my left wrist (both when I was 8, bike crash for the sprain, rock climbing for the fracture) and then a couple of decades later I broke a bone in the left hand right near the connection to the wrist, close enough that it wasn't clear whether it was the hand or the wrist until after the doctors ran their tests.
The sprain and fracture had a lot of swelling, much more swelling for the fracture. I definitely didn't have the full range of movement for my hand/wrist with those injuries, though it took the x-ray to make the fracture clear. I don't think I had a brace, much less a cast, for the sprain.
The broken bone in the hand was a really odd case where it didn't seem to affect my range of movement at all, plus there was never any swelling. Certain motions caused a lot of pain, but I was traveling when I got hurt and continued to do things like lift boxes or scrub dishes, all the while thinking the pain would go away.
Almost two weeks after the injury I got home, went to the doctor the next day, and left after some x-rays and/or a CT scan with a cast. The doctor's comment was that the break was in such a weird spot that it was just going to be painful until it healed and that was that. There apparently wasn't any need to set it and apparently no motion could make it worse, aside from falling on it again. It took about a month with the cast, then another month or so regularly wearing a brace before my hand was fine again.
My medical care for the broken hand was in Canada. Treatment cost $0 CAN for all tests and doctor's vists. I paid about $45 out of pocket for the brace, but I might have gotten that reimbursed. My premiums were about $60 per month just in general. There was no waiting list for the initial tests or the cast, and only a small delay for the CT scan done much later that confirmed my hand had healed. Unfortunately, in exchange I was not allowed to open carry guns into the hospital, have true American freedom, or feel like I was a strong man in a world in need of a powerful leader who would make my nation great again.
Signs of a fracture: pain, swelling, bruising, reduced mobility, deformity, history of trauma. Not all will be present in every case.
Anyone ever broken their wrist? How do you tell?
In my case, it was pretty easy, because my arm bent in three places rather than two.
That seems more like a sign you broke your arm, not your wrist.
But the wrist is a subset of the arm.
If you broke your wrist, you broke your arm. If you broke your arm, you may or may not have broken your wrist.
So we're talking a unidirectional conditional?
||The Don Blankenship campaign used the four true races principle and concluded that Ogged is Mexican! "We're confused on our staff as to how it can be racist when there's no mention of race. There's no race. Races are Negro, white Caucasian, Hispanic, Asian. There's no mention of a race. I've never used a race word."|>
42: That's so crazy. I found out this weekend that my mom broke her hand (maybe it's actually the wrist -- I don't know) Tel Aviv bus drivers! Apparently, the bus driver closed the door and took of before my 86-year old mother managed to get completely off the bus and she fell and broke her fall with her hand, and broke her hand.
That's a pretty horrible bus driving.
If she had a gun, she could have protected herself.
55: If Don Blankenship is a racist, how come twenty-seven of the twenty-nine people he killed are white?
I laughed at 58. My journey to psychopathy is complete.
59: No. If you thought, "Wow, that's a good point!" then your journey would be complete.
"Have another drink and power it out" is underrated medical advice. Just keep thinking -- eh, it's probably fine.
also underrated legal advice.
Alright, it still hurts and I can't carry anything of weight with that hand. I'm going to the hospital in the morning.
In other news I just signed a lease on a new apartment in a brand new building, no pigeons roosting and pooping on my window sill, or any other vermin. Can't wait to move in.
In still other news it hit over 106F/41C here.
58: It shows he believes that jobs come first.
62.1: That sounds like a very good idea.
62.2: Sounds great!
63: That sounds horrible!
And now I'm the psychopath. Anyway, it's incredible that Blankenship can have a serious chance at the Senate.
66 Does he have a shot? How many more West Virginians does he have to kill to get elected?
Unless he really polls low, having a real chance at the Republican nomination in a state that's not heavily Democratic seems like a real chance. Maybe not as high as a non criminal nominee.
"All this time," Massie explained, "I thought they were voting for libertarian Republicans. But after some soul searching I realized when they voted for Rand and Ron and me in these primaries, they weren't voting for libertarian ideas -- they were voting for the craziest son of a bitch in the race.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/rep-massies-theory-voters-who-voted-for-libertarians-and-then-trump-were-always-just-seeking-the-craziest-son-of-a-bitch-in-the-race
There was a news bit headed that Blankenship was surging in the polls despite the super racist ads, and I thought, "How do they figure 'despite'?"
69: "Crazy" is a very generous way to put it, but I've always figured the same. See 70.
70, 71: Everyone knows that there is no racism anymore in the U.S. But you know how Americans love outlaws.
There was a news bit headed that Blankenship was surging in the polls despite the super racist ads him murdering a bunch of West Virginians then covering that up.
I will admit, in my naivety I'm a bit surprised that a bit of weirdly wooden racism (like, seriously, not even flashy well-produced racism like Fox News does, this is public access TV at 6am on a Sunday in 1992 racism) against Chinese people outweighs that.
Honestly, I'd vote for Cocaine Mitch before I'd vote for "Senator McConnell who held open a Supreme Court seat so he could destroy Obamacare."
Life imitating art: halfway through my flight home last night the cabin crew came on the PA to ask if there was a doctor on board, just as I finished my dinner; I had had the fish...
73: it is also weird that more is not being made of the fact that Blankenship's own fiancee, Farrah Meiling Hobbs, was born in China...
75: Looks like you picked the wrong day to stop sniffing glue.
What's the deal with the cocaine bit of Cocaine Mitch?
It turns out that cocaine is illegal.
You can get "medical cocaine," but not to take home with you.
If I must be helpful: Mitch's father-in-law owns a shipping company and some cocaine was found on one of his ships. No charges were filed against him, his company, anybody employed by his company, or anybody at all. They don't know who put the cocaine there. It was just 40 pounds of coke on a bulk freighter.
Cocaine found on one of his inlaws' ships, iirc.
Shit. I didn't even need to have bothered being helpful.
Thanks, it's so hard to keep up these days.
OT: If they send me an email suggesting I take a "Confident City Cycling" class, are they trying to help me or get me killed?
It was all a misunderstanding about coal coke vs. drug coke.
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For entirely unrelated reasons (I found this year's hole in the waders on Sunday) I was just looking at the web site of a delightfully cranky fly shop near Pittsburgh and discovered that among the neighbouring towns there is a string that runs "New Beaver", "Big Beaver", "Beaver Falls" and finally, "Beaver". The story of its life, I suppose.
But then I saw there is another town in the neighbourhood called " Ambridge " and realised that they make it all up to fool the former colonial power.
It's Beaver County, which makes sense given the Beaver Wars were fought here. Ambridge, PA, is just another case of naming the town after the the people who own the factory (e.g. Carnegie). In this case, American Bridge Company.
It took me a really long time to parse that first sentence.
90: Ha, I never thought of it as a progression before. Beaver Falls was the setting of the 80's sitcom Mr. Belvedere--because middle class people who live in exurban Western Pennsylvania can afford English butlers. There was also a university that was founded there, Beaver University, that for whatever reason moved cross-state to near Philly. Given the opaqueness of its name and the constant prurient jokes, it renamed itself Arcadia University.
Ambridge is a heck of a good lie--a charming town name, but it comes from being the company town for the American Bridge Company.
Moby pwns even when he's the straight man.
I was trying to make up something too stupid to be true.
Anyway, you should be able to fix waders with the same stuff you use to fix bicycle inner tubes.
Assuming you fix bicycle inner tubes with a rubber patch kit.
96 is true as a normative and a descriptive statement but not if the hole is somewhere heavy duty like the sole or a seam, or is just very big.
Do all British people have waders? Like the country is actually flooded the whole time and no-one ever told me?
I think they go fishing by standing in the water instead of standing next to the water or getting in a boat.
Maybe we took all the boats when we went to the colonies?
If we're using the relevant subsets of the Unfoggedtariat as a sample to derive population demographics from, all Pittsburghers are men. And all Roc Islanders are from the Mossheimat, oddly enough.
100 is still a live issue in US politics with candidates regularly grilled about where they stand on Row vs. Wade.
103 is an atrocity. But I'm a psychopath, so I laughed.
Anyway, I've never been much for fishing, but maybe if I tried to kind where you stand in the water and wave the line around, I would like it better.
(Also, related to a years-ago picture in the pool that I can no longer remember how to get to, were the little legs holding up the frying pan for the Tragnia set right when nworb tried to cook trout?)
You guys are really hitting me with the sentences today.
105 - I don't know a lot, but if you get kinda advanced you can do something called "nymphing" or "Czech nymphing" which sounds exciting.
Am I to understand from that URL that there are in the world at least 52 new camping stoves per year available for examination?
Re: 86: Joking aside, I've been thinking recently about how safe biking, polite biking, and legal biking are three completely different things. My bike accident that was such a big deal last fall wouldn't have been nearly so bad if I had hit the car, instead of the pavement. My snap decision to brake as hard as possible was part of the problem. I don't feel guilty for doing the math wrong in that fraction of a second, but the point is, my priority should have been "stop completely," not "stop quickly." I then would have failed to stop completely, probably hit the cab's trunk belly-first, and might have walked away from it with no injuries at all. (If I dented his trunk, I guess I might have been partially liable for the repairs, but I would have much preferred that to what actually happened.) Panicking made the situation worse.
And just last week, I was biking down into my office's garage. I rushed because there was a car right behind me. I started going down the ramp before my ID card was back in my pocket. With only one hand on the handlebars, I lost control, fell down, and bruised my knee. No big deal, I was able to bike home that same day, it was mostly just embarrassing, but still: I shouldn't have been so considerate.
More generally, I see a lot of reckless and/or asshole biking that's perfectly legal, lots of safe biking that's technically illegal, and so on. I want to focus more on the safety and less on the legality, and yeah, sometimes that would mean doing it more confidently, even if that sounds kind of weird.
The Rocs cycle a lot, AFAICT generally safely, although I'm sure largely both illegally and contra to US best practice. I suspect the density of motor scooters (and pedestrians, and intersections) on the roads creates habits of situational awareness in everyone, and the clumps of scooters create a kind of collective footprint that protects them from larger vehicles.
109: You can review classic stoves too.
112 does not make me feel better.
There are several types (using different types of fuel) and many manufacturers.
Was Sitting Pretty set in the same town as the Belvedere tv show? It's been a while since I watched it and wikipedia doesn't say or I just didn't read it closely.
115: I had not idea it was based on a novel/movie.
if you get kinda advanced you can do something called "nymphing" or "Czech nymphing" which sounds exciting.
As I may have mentioned here before, Czech nymphing is known in Italian as "Halfordismo".
Sorry, that's 180 degrees wrong. "Halfordismo" means a dogmatic opposition to all forms of nymphing.
I also had no idea Mr. Belvedere was based on movies from the 1940s.
At first it seems to explain the strange Mr. Belvedere phenomenon. Instead of out of the blue proposing a sitcom about a lovable snooty butler, this was a proposal to bring back something that the TV executives vaguely remembered.
But then... how does THAT meeting go? "You know what the public is craving right now? A revival of the movie series from 40 years ago starring Clifton Webb. No, it won't be a star vehicle this time, we can get a totally unknown theater actor to play him, I am THAT CONFIDENT that this will work. Also, bring back Little Iodine and the Aldrich Family."
Amber Brkich from Survivor (she married "Boston Rob") was from Beaver Pa.
To get a sense of Beaver County watch some Friday Night Tykes: Steel Country which follow youth football teams in that area.
I am sure I have pointed out before that local to me is Big Bone Lick State Park, which is on Beaver Road. None of you have ever taken me up on the atlatl demonstrations there, so I think I'm going to have to settle for bringing DSA comrades.
"According to our new arrival, life is naught but white survival. Looks like we might live the Kristalnatch yet."
Since this is the PA thread, who should I vote for in the Lieutenant Governor race? I refuse to educate myself about every little office and the yard signs aren't helping.
No, it won't be a star vehicle this time,
It was still a star vehicle, but it was Bob Yuker's star vehicle, so the actor who played Mr. Belvedere (or "Brocktoon" as I call him) could be chosen based on talent.
sad day when Bob Uecker has so lost his status as America's greatest baseball icon that people can't even spell his name. He was in well-known Miller Lite commercials!
Also the rise of IMDB and smartphones has made it much harder to do things like claim at parties to have been the original Wesley from Mr. Belvedere
But then... how does THAT meeting go? "You know what the public is craving right now? A revival of the movie series from 40 years ago starring Clifton Webb.
You don't have to run fast, you just have to outrun the bear. Consider the competition
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-x0RstYEGs&t=8s
For example, consider the premise of competitor Dolphin Cove
The show centers on Michael Larson (Frank Converse), who moved with his son David (Trey Ames) and daughter Katie (Karron Graves) to Australia to research dolphins. Essentially, Larson is supposed to be scouting for a new start after his wife died, but his son dislikes the Aussie life and new school. Katie hadn't spoken since the death of her mother, and hated her new therapist, but her outlook on everything changed when she realized that she could communicate and speak to the dolphins..
Norm Macdonald's Bob Uecker story.
Also, why did no one tell me to stop masturbating to Joe Frank? January.
I'm not sure I knew the movie was the badis for the much later tv show until I was watching it and the butler introduced himself. I thought it was pretty good.
Other butler comedies I recommend: My Man Godfrey, Ruggles of Red Gap.
-OT: Can somebody tell me why my google log-in page says "dogfood feedback" in red on the upper right of the window?
It's both Chrome and Firefox. The gmail log-in page.
If you click it, it turns blue and opens another copy of the same window in a new tab.
If I click "Dogfood feedback" and then try to log in to my email, it tells me I need permission from the owner for the form. I'm guessing that's Lorne Greene, but he might be dead.
136-139: ... that sounds like some version of the page that's supposed to be for internal users leaked out. ("Eating our own dogfood", supposedly, but really it's just using employees as beta testers). That's why you don't have access to the form. I would probably just ignore it.
140: I though he just lost his voice.
141: Thanks. I was vaguely worried it was a problem.
Is Dogfood Feedback the new Standpipe Bridgeplate? Does the name "Wry Cooter" unlock all forms?
The world may never know.
If Don Blankenship is a racist, how come twenty-seven of the twenty-nine people he killed are white?
That's just about exactly proportional to the demographics of WV.
"Affirmation Action Don Blankenship kills people according to Nancy Pelosi's vision of America. If elected, I will kill according to merit."
It was still a star vehicle, but it was Bob Yuker's star vehicle, so the actor who played Mr. Belvedere (or "Brocktoon" as I call him) could be chosen based on talent.
"Listen, we don't need the butler to be a star. We've got a star. For the role of the father I've been talking to the announcer for the Milwaukee Brewers and he is VERY interested. Yes he's acted before, did you see those beer commercials?!"
Lots of denial on display in that article linked in 69:
Do those voters, more than anything, crave change agents over philosophical disciples?
"Change agents" vs. "philosophical disciples", exactly the description of the Republican Party everyone has been reaching for but unable to grasp.
"Row vs Wade" is sublime. Although I do both when I have to, wading is sublime. You could sell it as a spiritual practice: just standing in still water up to your waist for two or three hours, while thinking and observing closely, is the kind of meditation that is really transformative.
If Halfordismo is fundamentally opposed to nymphing, what is its position of woolly buggers (eg Alan Ginsberg)?
In other news, I think I will be able to mend these waders and not have to phone the nice man in Burrows PA to discover if he will ship a new pair to England. Which is a shame, because he had the sweetest ca 1997 web site I have seen since about 1998 and clearly has his mind on higher things.
150: It was even better when I heard it as a Cajun joke, ages back.
Thibodeaux: "Ey Boudreaux, whatchew t'ink about Roe versus Wade?"
Boudreaux: "Well Thibodeaux, it depen on the dept o de bayou."
Along the same lines, there's the observation that Americans think abortion should be permissible under just three sets of conditions: 1. Cases of rape and incest; 2. To protect the life or health of the mother; and 3. Their own particular circumstances.
I also have a Hitler joke, but I think I've told it here before.
You could sell it as a spiritual practice: just standing in still water up to your waist for two or three hours, while thinking and observing closely, is the kind of meditation that is really transformative.
I had no idea there was a St. Kevin. I figured it was more modern name.
I've gotten used to St. Kevin but St. Chad still sounds silly.
The patron said of elections, IIRC.
HOW'S YOUR SNOOTY MONOTHEISM WORKING FOR YOU NOW, HUH?
"We have a god for everything but premature ejaculation, but I hear that's coming quickly."
For a moment there I read that as Mel Gibson, and which made less sense but was funnier.
I've been thinking about the Blankenship thing. Obviously, if Trump wanted to stop Blankenship, he could have done so by picking one of the two non-felon candidates instead of saying vote for either of them.
I doubt profoundly that Trump has enough brain to think about anything other than Cohen right now.
Anyway, I'm very sure that keeping 50 seats in the Senate is the exact same thing as Cohen in Trump's brain.
153: "Tiffany" dates back to at least the Middle Ages. Makes perfect sense, but still feels weird.
Campos on Broidy: worth a ponder.
Still way over paid, though. These guys should realize that the wingers don't actually care about anything the guy does, so long as he talks shit about the blacks/mexicans/liberals/communists.
Campos on Broidy: worth a ponder.
Still way over paid, though. These guys should realize that the wingers don't actually care about anything the guy does, so long as he talks shit about the blacks/mexicans/liberals/communists.
Yes. It's always "because of the racism," not "in spite of". I've lost patience with people pretending otherwise in the name of whatever it is they expect to get by pretending.
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Went to the hospital this morning and saw an orthopedist, they took x-rays and my wrist is fine, so are some other banged up parts of my body including my ankle which has been bothering me since autumn so he's ordered an MRI for that.
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Don't forget to take off your watch. Good luck with the ankle.
170 Thanks for the reminder, just did. And thanks.
153/4. Chad was responsible for converting Mercia, IIRC, which was more or less the last pagan holdout among the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. He has a nice cathedral named after him in Lichfield.
Tiffany reached western Europe with the crusades: from Greek Theophania, via French.
Tiffany the singer reached MTV via a tour of shopping malls.
169: Glad your wrist isn't broken, but not sure about your doctor's definition of "fine".
174 Thanks, my word not his. It's not fractured.
I had an optometrist who said my eyes were fine, despite the extreme (but correctable with lenses) near-sightedness. When I wondered about "fine", she said, essentially, "you don't see the range of patients I see", which, fair enough.
Maybe you just couldn't see the queue at the back of the room?
I lived in a St. Kevin's parish when I was young. I understand the parish has been closed and the site converted to low-income housing.
But, I now see there was a Saint Petrock. There's a missed marketing opportunity.