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Except, of course, for a few friends who might drop by in summer for the cool temperatures... 8-)

Charlie

The leftist weenies would have it that way. But we'll shoot them all first ;-)

Dearly! Some day I'll list my annual payments to the IRS over the past 47 years. On average it'd buy me a SLK55 AMG every year :-(

...Jim Thompson

That's what I want it to _sound_like_ ;-)

...Jim Thompson

At MIT they taught us not to piss on our hands ;-)

...Jim Thompson

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Methinks you visited quite a few years _after_ 1962 ;-)

And we sipped a few on the patio without so much as a drop of sweat.

...Jim Thompson

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Ooops! Brain fart. You're not Spehro... he and spouse visited, not you, Charlie. Charlie and I met at Cadence in Irvine.

...Jim Thompson

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Melbourne. I was born and brought up in northern Tasmania, but went to Melbourne University, and played field hockey in Melbourne, which occasioned most of the visits to Emergency Admissions.

At the moment I'm spending three months of the year in Sydney and will be moving there full-time in a few years.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen (at the moment).

Nonsense. The illegal immigrants come to the US for work, not medical care or schools.

If their primary interest was medical care and schools they'd go someplace else.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

As if the US had a social safety net.

Which is work, particularly the kind of work that US citizens don't feel like doing.

If the US made their school system and medical care even worse than they are at the moment - and for low-income familes both are dire when compared with other advanced industrial countries - they might frighten off enough of the immigrant workers that U.S, citizens would have to do their own stoop labour, and - more important - the employers would have to pay rates that were high enough to persuade U.S. citizens to do the work.

You can imagine what the employers would say to their elected representatives if this happened.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

: :Ha! I've never met an interloper yet who could pop into Phoenix in :July and cope ;-) : :To the uninitiated, 100°F+ takes their breath away and they, :fortunately, decide Phoenix is not for them. : :Myself, arriving from Boston via un-air-conditioned Renault Dauphine, :June 24, 1962, thought I had made a horrible mistake ;-) : :But I quickly acclimated, and didn't buy an air-conditioned car until :1964. : : ...Jim Thompson

I have a good idea of what it is like to experience day after day of temperatures in excess of 100F, and it does become quite taxing on the body and the mind. We experience this type of weather often where I live, although I accept that it would be more intense and constant in Phoenix. However, if the humidity never exceeds 24% along with those high temperatures it it far easier to take than lower maximum temperature with high humidity. This, I can also attest to through personal experience. If you want to find out spend a summer in Kuala Lumpur or some similar tropical asian place and you will soon be dying to get aback to Phoenix.

I would also challenge your assumption that, other than yourself, "interlopers" would not be able to adjust to Phoenix summers. As an example, Australia and Pakistan played a 50 overs per side cricket match in Abu Dabi yesterday. The 3pm temperature in the open stadium in the middle of the desert was 45 deg C (113 deg F). Australia was fielding for the first 3 hours in that temperature and the physical and mental torture (particularly for the bowlers) would have been excruciating. Surprisingly, no-one broke down or had to leave the field through heat exhaustion. Australia overcame the wear-and-tear on their bodies and chased down the 197 run total set by Pakistan, under lights, with the loss of only 2 wickets. I am sure the low humidity would have had a lot to do with their ability to handle the heat, and on that basis, if they had to play in Phoenix it would have been a doddle.

In Australia, Marble Bar holds the world record for the number of consecutive days where the maximum reached or exceeded 100 deg F.

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When I first came to the Coachella valley in '79, it was in August. I was standing next to a few folks, outdoors, and they were complaining about how hot it was. I asked, "How hot is it?" and was told 120 degrees. I looked around, said "It does feel a little warm..."

I had just come from Memphis, where 95 and 95 was a common occurance. It actually felt pretty nice!

My first two years, we didn't even have air conditioning in the car. Just a squirt bottle!

Charlie

Of course he should make the most of "socialised medicine", but he shouldn't then complain about his taxes paying for it.

Small world! I'm a Melbourne boy.

Well, if you visit Melbourne, I'd be happy to buy you a beer. ;^)

Yeah, it's a bit like that at times. ;^)

Yep. No argument from me on that point.

That's technology for you. Some times it's a good thing, some times it isn't. Don't even get me started on the hassles we had with breastfeeding my son.

u.

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And that's a meaner thing to say about pigs.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

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=A0 =A0 ...Jim Thompson

The schemes - as Bismark invented them - were self-funding and financially responsible.

I wouldn't be in the least surprised to learn that U.S. politicians have chosen to sabotage what they see as a "socialist" scheme by designing it to build up an unsustainable debt, but that's your idiotic politics in action, not an intrinsic vice.

Another aspect of that American financial "expertise" that has sunk the whole world into depression.

Other countries seem to manage their universal health care scheme rather more sustainably.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

Complaining just wouldn't be "patriotic", right?

Slowman *is* a fantasy. A nightmare is a fantasy, after all.