Clipmarks | debbyski's clips

Medicare For Everyone

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 06:03:50 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

The goal and slogan of "healthcare reform" should be quite simple: "Medicare for Everyone."

Why do we have to wait until we are 65 to be guaranteed the right of health coverage?

Who is publicly against Medicare? Just the fringe right wing loonies in the GOP (although a larger number of Republican politicians oppose it as a government entitlement, but won't say so because they would be slaughtered at the polls by outraged seniors who love their Medicare.)

Private healthcare insurance only accomplishes two things: increases the costs of healthcare and denies needed care as much as it can get away with.

So when politicians keep talking about free market alternatives as being more efficient: the private health insurance industry proves just the opposite. In order to make a profit or pay high non-profit insurance (think Blue Cross) salaries, they have to add costs onto the healthcare system. It's that simple.

And they have to deny care as frequently as they can in order to increase profit

The "What The Hell Is This Shit Helmet Award" goes to... Tanyamm!

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:48:01 GMT

clipped by: thisnamecantbetaken
clipper's remarks: As the current holder of the much coveted Helmet Award, I think the time has come to pass it on. I'd like to give it to Tanyamm, who every day makes us all smile with her fabulous LOLcat clips and is always so polite, sweet, funny and just an all 'round great gal, who I am proud to call a fellow clipper. It was also she, who suggested we should honour each other, so no one could be more deserving of this very, very, very prestigious award.

*drumroll*

"THE HELMET AWARD"

*applause applause applause*

Congratulations, Tanyamm!!

The Helmet Award is now yours and you're free to pass it on to whomever you choose. Wear it with pride.

Clip Source: content2.clipmarks.com

Clip Source: clipmarks.com

What The Hell Is This Shit Helmet Award!!

YAY!!!!

Congratulations!

Helmet Award!! Wow!!

'LOL' and "LOL" again!

Pop for the future!

Clip Source: content1.clipmarks.com

Clip Source: clipmarks.com

What do the rest of think ? Can we do this? Are we breaking a rule? I like it .

Do any of you have a special clipper?

for whatever reason, they picked me for a special clip with my name in it.

Clip Source: content4.clipmarks.com

Women's Friendship Lifts Moods

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 06:07:38 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: www.opednews.com

About a decade ago, a study carried out at UCLA examined the benefits of

friendship among women. It made official what many women have known all along: Our friendships not only make us feel better, they are a positive force for reducing stress and helping us lead healthier, happier lives.

The UCLA study found that women respond to stress with a rush of brain chemicals that makes us seek out women for comfort and support.

The catalyst for this research came when Klein and a colleague, Shelley Taylor,
realized that when women working in their lab were stressed, they gathered

together to commiserate, while stressed-out men went off on their own.

Even having a woman nearby in stressful times makes a difference: Doula-supported childbirth in which a woman supports the birthing mother has been demonstrated to reduce labor by more than an hour. In short, friends help us live calmer, longer, better lives.

Facing Vatican Scrutiny

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:51:51 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

The Vatican is quietly conducting two sweeping investigations of American nuns, a development that has startled and dismayed nuns who fear they are the targets of a doctrinal inquisition.

The more extensive of the two investigations is called an “Apostolic Visitation,” and the Vatican has provided only a vague rationale for it: to “look into the quality of the life” of women’s religious institutes.

In a speech in Massachusetts last year, Cardinal Rodé offered barbed criticism of some American nuns “who have opted for ways that take them outside” the church.

Given this backdrop, Sister Schneiders, the professor in Berkeley, urged her fellow sisters not to cooperate with the visitation, saying the investigators should be treated as “uninvited guests who should be received in the parlor, not given the run of the house.”

“It’s an opportunity for us to re-evaluate ourselves, to make our reality known and also to be challenged to live authentically who we say we are,” she said.

Patients Doctors Don't Know

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:55:48 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Often even experienced doctors are unaware that 80-year-olds are not the same as 50-year-olds. Pneumonia in a 50-year-old causes fever, cough and difficulty breathing; an 80-year-old with the same illness may have none of these symptoms, but just seem “not herself” — confused and unsteady, unable to get out of bed.

She may end up in a hospital, where a doctor prescribes a dose of antibiotic that would be right for a woman in her 50s, but is twice as much as an 80-year-old patient should get, and so she develops kidney failure, and grows weaker and more confused. In her confusion, she pulls the tube from her arm and the catheter from her bladder.

Instead of re-evaluating whether the tubes are needed, her doctor then asks the nurses to tie her arms to the bed so she won’t hurt herself.

This shouldn’t happen.

Basic geriatric knowledge is preventive medicine.

Turf War At The Hot Dog Cart

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:40:40 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

MONDAY was a routine day for Grant Di Mille and Samira Mahboubian, the owners of the Street Sweets food truck, a mobile trove of croissants, cupcakes and cookies that got rolling last month.

In four weeks of business, the couple has been threatened at the depot where they park the truck; cursed by a gyro vendor who said that he would set their truck on fire; told to stay off every corner in Midtown by ice cream truck drivers; and approached by countless others with advice — both friendly and menacing — on how to get along on the streets.

I should not have to carry a baseball bat on my truck in order to sell cupcakes.

“If I only did business where these hot dog guys said I could do business,” said Lev Ekster, owner of the new CupcakeStop truck, “I would be vending in New Jersey.”

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Vendors say that the traditional code of the streets may be effective, but that it feeds on fear, intimidation and the city’s lack of enforcement of permit rules.

I Intend To Stop You

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:09:19 GMT

clipped by: beaukivi
clipper's remarks: For you, babe.

Clip Source: www.thelocal.se

Veronica Maggio - Sweden's new soul sister

In the video for her most recent hit, Stopp, Maggio dons a pair of somewhat disconcerting gloves made from scissors and knives. “It’s because I saw the Edward Scissorhands movie just a few weeks before” explains Maggio:

“The song is about loving somebody that you were with and then realizing that you want that person back desperately and you can’t do anything about it. The more you try to get that person to love you, the further away they move from you… So I thought that the scissor hands was a good metaphor for how when you hurt somebody and you hurt yourself, you can’t really touch that person at all”.

“I wanted it to be a bit psycho too, a bit like a scary stalker person! I didn’t want cute, I wanted to be a little scary for this video”.

“I’ve done lots of songs in English but I’ve never recorded or released them”.

It must be the language barrier or something

I feel more at home with Swedish I guess

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

Veronica Maggio - Stopp

[Video]

Tags: i love you

An Open Letter

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 22:18:53 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: "Every day, LGBT Americans face discrimination and are being denied their constitutional rights. There is no one in public life who could, and based on your stated principles and promises should, do more to move America forward toward becoming a country in which LGBT people are respected and treated as fully equal under our Constitution and laws.
We ask for your leadership and voice. When you lead, we will back you with every bit of heart and determination we can muster."

Clip Source: site.pfaw.org

Dear President Obama:

I am writing to respectfully urge you to bring the energetic moral vision that you championed as a presidential candidate to the cause of equality for gay and lesbian Americans.

That vision energized not only gays and lesbians, but many other fair-minded Americans who recognize discrimination as a national moral failing

That vision would be even more powerful coming from you as president, but since your election we have heard very little.

Any reasonable person is aware of the extraordinary challenges that faced the nation as you took office, including a dire financial crisis that has cost millions of Americans their jobs

Mr. President, you are uniquely capable of communicating to the American public the moral and constitutional values at stake in ending discrimination against gay Americans.

In Her Simplistic Universe

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:01:57 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: "She has also chosen to ignore the views of religious scholars who do not share her incurious perspective. Yet, Kern is capable of being a cafeteria Christianist."

Clip Source: www.tips-q.com

For the first time in America’s history, we have a president who has no understanding of the Biblical worldview and who has even less understanding of the truths of the Bible. This is evident when he says that support for homosexual “marriage” [unions] can be found in the Sermon on the Mount

Translation: Obama's views on Christianity differ from mine but mine is the only correct point of view. Perhaps Kern is also unaware of that pesky clause of the Constitution that prohibits religious tests for any federal office.

We have a president who doesn’t know the difference between God-given rights and sinful, perverted behavior.

Oklahoma has a state senator who is incapable of separating her religious beliefs from her civic responsibilities.

In Kern-world, gay people don't exist.

In Kern's simplistic universe, everyone is straight.

Blink Twice If You Like Me

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 12:39:39 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Sara Lewis is fluent in firefly

The fireflies flashing in the air are all males. Down in the grass, Dr. Lewis points out, females are sitting and observing. They look for flash patterns of males of their own species, and sometimes they respond with a single flash of their own, always at a precise interval after the male’s.

Dr. Lewis takes out a penlight and clicks it twice, in perfect Photinus greeni. A female Photinus greeni flashes back.

“Most people don’t realize there’s this call and response going on,” Dr. Lewis said. “But it’s very, very easy to talk to fireflies.”

For Dr. Lewis, this meadow is the stage for an invertebrate melodrama, full of passion and yearning, of courtship duets and competitions for affection, of cruel deception and gruesome death.

In recent years scientists have analyzed the DNA of fireflies to figure out how their light has evolved

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Dr. Lewis wondered if the female fireflies were picking their mates based on variations in the flashes of the males.

Heterosexual Ivy League Professor Kills Wife

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 05:02:46 GMT

clipped by: jklugman
clipper's remarks: Since people are entertaining the idea that we should ban gay adoption because an allegedly gay man is accused of molesting his adopted son, I think it is only fair that we ask, in light of this incident, if we should ban marriages involving straight men, economists, or Ivy League professors.

Clip Source: en.wikipedia.org

Rafael Robb (born October 31, 1950)^[1] is an economist and former professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

Robb pleaded guilty in November 2007 to voluntary manslaughter in the high-profile death of his wife, Ellen Gregory Robb. Gregory Robb was reportedly bludgeoned to death with a chin-up bar. ^[5]

Tags: hypocrisy, homophobia

How Long Is Long Enough?

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 12:43:11 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

No one seems to know how old Mohammed Jawad was when he was seized by Afghan forces in Kabul six and a half years ago and turned over to American custody. Some reports say he was 14. Some say 16. The Afghan government believes he was 12.

What is not in dispute is that he was no older than an adolescent, and that since his capture he has been tortured and otherwise put through hell. The evidence against him has been discredited. He has tried to commit suicide. But the U.S. won’t let him go.

The treatment of the young captive was so egregious that the decorated U.S. Army officer assigned to prosecute him — a man gung-ho to secure a conviction against a defendant he believed had committed a serious crime against the American military — ended up removing himself from the case and declaring that he could no longer “in good conscience” participate in the military commissions set up to try accused terrorists.

A Doctor's Office That Puts Patients At Ease

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 23:01:45 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: " I asked her to let me know in a month if it was helpful. As she was leaving, she quickly glanced around the office and told me that she was happy that she had come.

"This is very unusual," she said. "I don't want to leave."

I walked her to the receptionist's desk and as I did, I am sure I heard my violin playing."

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

I played my violin today. It's an old but not a rare or expensive instrument that I keep in my office. I don't have to play it; my violin plays itself. Just the sight of the violin brings the music to my mind.

Mrs. Goldstein heard it.

She was 101 and frail, but refused to allow any gray hair on her head to date her -- and she loved my office. She told me that she had seen a lot of doctors but had never seen an office "like this one."

These things are there for a reason. The doctor's office is a stressful place.

If I can get my patients to relax, they will hear and learn more about their health.

A number of my patients tell me that I always get a lower blood pressure reading than their other physicians.

Physicians also experience stress

He asked me how long he had to live.

I tried to answer honestly.

Each time I do, I worry that I will give incorrect information and falsely raise or lower hope.

Those Darlins

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 23:42:12 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: www.motherjones.com

Are these Nashville gals a country group? A comedy act? Closet punk rockers? With a touch of Ramones-style marketing, the faux siblings Kelley, Jessi, and Nikki Darlin make a raucous debut. Down-home twang abounds: "Drinkin' and pain go hand in hand," they admit on the forlorn "Glass to You." Declaring their independence in "Wild One," they shout, "If you can't handle crazy / Go ahead and leave," but Those Darlins' tales of lust- and booze-fueled misconduct will make even country-music haters want to stick around.

At The Mercy Of Her Mind

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 23:20:31 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

She suffers from delusions, hallucinations and paroxysms of rage so severe that not even her parents feel safe. She's threatened to climb into an oven. She's kicked and tried to bite her little brother.

The doctors have been trying a new antipsychotic medication, called Moban. Jani knows she is sick and that people want to help her.

"Is the Moban working?" her mother asks Jani during a visit.

"No. I have more friends."

Susan Schofield looks crestfallen.

About 1% of adults have schizophrenia; most become ill in their late teens or 20s. Approximately one in 10 will commit suicide.

Doctors and other mental health experts don't fully understand the disease, which has no cure.

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

"If Jani was 16, there would be resources," Michael says. "But very few hospitals, private or public, will take a 6-year-old."

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

"So many people just thought we had a bratty kid,"