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Paranoia Strikes Deep

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:53:23 GMT

Published: November 9, 2009

Last Thursday there was a rally outside the U.S. Capitol to protest pending health care legislation, featuring the kinds of things we’ve grown accustomed to, including large signs showing piles of bodies at Dachau with the caption “National Socialist Healthcare.”

It was sponsored by the House Republican leadership

What all this shows is that the G.O.P. has been taken over by the people it used to exploit.

At this point Newt Gingrich is what passes for a sober, reasonable elder statesman of the G.O.P.

And he has no authority

Real power in the party rests, instead, with the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin

The point is that the takeover of the Republican Party by the irrational right is no laughing matter. Something unprecedented is happening here — and it’s very bad for America.

Tags: paranoia, g.o.p., irrational right

HELP is on it's way

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 16:47:52 GMT

clipped by: antoniomilkbud

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

The Congressional Budget Office has looked at the future of American health insurance, and it works.

Let me start by pointing out something serious health economists have known all along: on general principles, universal health insurance should be eminently affordable.

After all, every other advanced country offers universal coverage, while spending much less on health care than we do

even if we didn’t have this international evidence to reassure us, a look at the U.S. numbers makes it clear that insuring the uninsured shouldn’t cost all that much, for two reasons.

uninsured are disproportionately young adults, whose medical costs tend to be relatively low

even now the uninsured receive a considerable (though inadequate) amount of “uncompensated” care, whose costs are passed on to the rest of the population

extending coverage to most or all

should

add only a few percent to our overall national health bill. And that’s exactly what the budget office found when scoring the HELP proposal

Tags: health care, help proposal, health insurance

Invent, Invent, Invent

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 16:02:57 GMT

clipped by: antoniomilkbud

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

When times are tight, people look for new, less expensive ways to do old things. Necessity breeds invention.

Therefore, the country that uses this crisis to make its population smarter and more innovative — and endows its people with more tools and basic research to invent new goods and services — is the one that will not just survive but thrive down the road.

We might be able to stimulate our way back to stability, but we can only invent our way back to prosperity.

We should be taking advantage.

we should be stapling a green card to the diploma of any foreign student who earns an advanced degree at any U.S. university

They would invent many more jobs than they would supplant. The world’s best brains are on sale. Let’s buy more!

we should also use this crisis to:

basic scientific research

find a cost-effective way to extend health care to every American.

Tags: creativity, us economy, invention, healthcare, education

This Time We Won't Scare

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 18:03:40 GMT

clipped by: antoniomilkbud

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Diane Tucker, 59, is an American lawyer who moved to Vancouver, Canada, in 2006. Like everyone else there, she now pays the equivalent of just $49 a month for health care.

the price was right. “They never spoke to me about money,” she said. “Not when I checked in, and not when I left.”

Still, there were two patients to a room, and conditions weren’t as opulent as at some American hospitals. “The food was horrible,” she said.

Then, last year, Ms. Tucker fainted while on a visit to San Francisco, and an ambulance rushed her to the nearest hospital. But this was in the United States, so the person meeting her at the emergency room door wasn’t a doctor.

“The first person I saw was a lady with a computer,” she said, “asking me how I intended to pay the bill.” Ms. Tucker did, in fact, have insurance, but she was told she would have to pay herself and seek reimbursement.

Nothing was seriously wrong, and the hospital discharged her after five hours. The bill came to $8,789.29.

Tags: healthcare, canadian healthcare, universal healthcare, rightwing scare tactics, swiftboating healthcare

Is my marriage gay?

Tue, 12 May 2009 14:08:31 GMT

clipped by: antoniomilkbud

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

How do we define legal gender? By chromosomes? By genitalia? By spirit? By whether one asks directions when lost?

Gender involves a lot of gray area. And efforts to legislate a binary truth upon the wide spectrum of gender have proven only how elusive sexual identity can be.

It’s worth pointing out, however, that there were some legal same-sex marriages in Maine already, just as there probably are in all 50 states. These are marriages in which at least one member of the couple has changed genders since the wedding.

Mrs. Littleton, while in San Antonio, Tex., is a male and has a void marriage

as she travels to Houston, Tex.,

she is female and a widow

upon entering Ohio, she is once again male and prohibited from marriage; entering Connecticut, she is again female and may marry;

to Vermont, she is male and may marry a female

Can we have a future in which we are more concerned with the love a family has than with the sometimes unanswerable questions of gender and identity?

Tags: same-sex marriage, marriage, transgender, family, gender

The Banality of Bush White House Evil

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 13:52:53 GMT

clipped by: antoniomilkbud

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Still, it’s not Bybee’s perverted lawyering and pornographic amorality that make his memo worthy of special attention.

When placed in full context, it’s the kind of smoking gun that might free us from the myths and denial that prevent us from reckoning with this ugly chapter in our history.

As soon as Bybee gave the green light, torture followed: Zubaydah was waterboarded at least 83 times in August 2002, according to another of the newly released memos.

So why the overkill?

not another potential Qaeda attack on America but the Bush administration’s ticking timetable for selling a war in Iraq

Torture may have been the last hope for coercing such bogus “intelligence” from detainees who would be tempted to say anything to stop the waterboarding.

Instead of saving us from “another 9/11,” torture was a tool in the campaign to falsify and exploit 9/11

Reclaiming America's soul

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 13:40:34 GMT

clipped by: antoniomilkbud

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

“Nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past.” So declared President Obama, after his commendable decision to release the legal memos that his predecessor used to justify torture.

Isn’t revisiting the abuses of the last eight years, no matter how bad they were, a luxury we can’t afford?

No, it isn’t, because America is more than a collection of policies.

In the past, our government has sometimes done an imperfect job of upholding those ideals. But never before have our leaders so utterly betrayed everything our nation stands for. “This government does not torture people,” declared former President Bush, but it did, and all the world knows it.

We need to do this for the sake of our future. For this isn’t about looking backward, it’s about looking forward — because it’s about reclaiming America’s soul.

Tags: ethics, bush, torture

Humanity Even for Nonhumans

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 22:56:42 GMT

clipped by: antoniomilkbud

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

One of the historical election landmarks last year had nothing to do with race or the presidency.

Rather, it had to do with

ideas about the limits of human dominion over other species.

Spain is moving to grant basic legal rights to apes. In the United States, law schools are offering courses on animal rights, fast-food restaurants including Burger King are working with animal rights groups to ease the plight of hogs and chickens in factory farms

the movement is also the product of a deep intellectual ferment pioneered by the Princeton scholar Peter Singer.

Jeremy Bentham, the philosopher who 200 years ago also advocated for women’s rights, gay rights and prison reform. He responded to Kant’s lack of interest in animals by saying: “The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?”

Tags: animal rights, ethics

online education

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 14:37:14 GMT

clipped by: antoniomilkbud

Clip Source: apnews.myway.com

College too expensive? Try YouTube.

The Google Inc. (GOOG)-owned YouTube has for the last few years been forging partnerships with universities and colleges. The site recently gathered these video channels under the banner YouTube EDU ().http://www.youtube.com/edu

More than 100 schools have partnered with YouTube to make an official channel, including Stanford, MIT, Harvard, Yale and the first university to join YouTube: UC Berkeley.

In 2002, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology launched the MIT OpenCourseWare () with the plan to make virtually all the school's courses available for free online.http://ocw.mit.edu

Tags: online, education, youtube

Eisenhower, King of the Socialists

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 03:23:49 GMT

clipped by: antoniomilkbud

Clip Source: www.dailykos.com

Only in 1988 and 1989 (Ronald Reagan's final 13 months in office) was the TOP MARGINAL rate down to 28%.

Barack Obama has proposed a top marginal tax rate of 39.6%, which was the rate under Bill Clinton.

Under previous Republicans:

Taft: (1909-1913)--income tax began in 1913 at 7% for top rate
Harding: (1921-1923): 56%-73%
Coolidge (1923-1929): 24%-56%
Hoover (1929-1933): 24%-63% (63% after Roosevelt took power)
Eisenhower (1953-1961): 91-92%
Nixon (1969-1974): 70-77%
Ford: (1974-1977): 70%
Reagan (1981-1989): 28%-69.13%
Bush I: (1989-1993): 28%-39.6% (39.6% after Clinton took power)

Tags: barack obama, socialism

Obama's call to change

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 13:59:54 GMT

clipped by: antoniomilkbud

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

why wait until January to get started?

It would be a shame to have poured all that idealism — and money, don’t forget — merely into one man’s election.

Mr. Obama doesn’t have to tell anyone what to do, only to do something good.

Some local cause is struggling even now. Find it and pitch in.

Why not spread the wealth?

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 22:58:00 GMT

clipped by: antoniomilkbud

Clip Source: therealnews.com

[Video]

Why not spread the wealth?

Obama meets Plumber Joe and McCain campaigns against 'spreading the wealth'

McCain's Financial Crisis Timeline

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 22:45:22 GMT

clipped by: antoniomilkbud

Clip Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

His campaign would be suspended, he told reporters, in order to work on the bailout legislation in Congress.

The debate scheduled with Barack Obama on Friday night, he added, could be postponed.

"I'm delighted that John is expressing himself on this issue," said Chris Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. "I have heard form Obama numerous occasions these last couple days. I have never heard from John McCain on the issue.

It was, in fact, Obama who first proposed to form a unity front in addressing the issue, calling McCain at 8:30 in the morning to discuss the issuance of a joint statement.

Tags: mccain, obama, bailout

'Bullying' religious culture Ineffective

Sun, 29 Jul 2007 17:57:11 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan
clipper's remarks: "But is trying to eliminate every other world view the best way to advance the Christian faith? Do believers think that they will win the hearts and minds of people by default? With all due respect to Christian brothers and sisters everywhere, that is a pretty lame approach to evangelism.

The need to have beliefs validated by the world around them reveals a nagging underlying insecurity on the part of some people of faith. It seems that unless their world view is constantly affirmed by what they see and hear in the wider culture, they feel threatened, attacked."

Clip Source: www.montgomeryadvertiser.com

With seven bestsellers in the series, and five blockbuster movies, like it or not, Harry Potter is here to stay.

And there are those who are not happy about that. Many Christian parents and church leaders fear that Harry's popularity promotes witchcraft and paganism among young people. In order to stop this pagan onslaught, strenuous efforts are being made to discourage parents from allowing their children to read the Harry Potter books or view the movies. In a few instances, there have even been efforts to ban the books from public libraries.

This disposition to ban and boycott reflects an attitude held by many in the Christian community that culture has some obligation to reflect a Christian world view. Anything in art or music, or even politics, which runs contrary to a certain prescribed orthodoxy must be eliminated from our view.

But why is culture responsible for delivering the Christian message? Isn't that the work of the church?

Tags: religion, harry potter, culture, christian, attitude, pagan, witchcraft, faith, self-esteem

Iraq's death toll a slaughter, way up in March

Sun, 01 Apr 2007 15:03:49 GMT

clipped by: ekorstanje
clipper's remarks: The only surge is in the death count.

Clip Source: news.yahoo.com

Iraq death toll jumps 15 percent in March

BAGHDAD (AFP) - At least 2,078 people died in Iraq last month, 15 percent more than in February despite a massive security crackdown in Baghdad, the epicentre of violence, a security official said on Sunday.

Civilian deaths topped the toll with 1,869 Iraqis killed in insurgency and sectarian bloodletting in March, compared to 1,646 in February.

Another 2,719 civilians were wounded last month, compared to 2,701 in February.

Tags: iraq