Trends by Mindbridge

An Argument for Pro-Choice Made to an Anti-Abortionist

2011-02-26T09:42:00.005-05:00

I applaud your passion. I would like to encourage you to join me in fighting for the living child, who's already here and needing help.

Contraception is far preferable to abortion:

Every study shows that when contraception is shown in sex education classes, and when sex education is taught, teen birth rates go down. Every study shows that when women are more educated, the number of children they bare goes down. Any desire to reduce teen pregnancy or to reduce the number of poor children, would strive to increase sex education and college bound women.

I don't know why Christian conservatives seem to prefer preaching Abstinence rather than a more complete sex education especially since the latter is better at preventing teen pregnancy. I don't know why the GOP is reducing monies for higher education at this time, which will, statistically speaking, increase the birth rate at a time when we don't have enough jobs for the existing population. Decisions have consequences, as you point out. The GOP seems to be in favor of increasing the population among teenagers and less educated mothers.

Families cannot afford to be large anymore:

You said we have been an irresponsible society, and I absolutely agree. This has been especially so since the conservative upheaval/rebellion in 1980. This was the beginning of "Greed is GOOD" when the culture/society began to encourage those on top to take it all, without any regard for their neighbors, their employees, or their environment. This is when the good paying jobs for those without a college education began to diminish.This is when small corporations were bought out or sold out to large corporations who then fired 60% of the employees in order to increase profits. This is when those at the bottom of the middle class began to merge with the poor. And, in terms of our arguments, this is when the American family became less able to afford any additional child.

I went to Catholic school, and many of my friends had 10 to 13 children in their families and we had great times so I am not against large families, but that was in the 1950's when the average family income was more than it is now and most wives were able to stay at home to care for their children. This is no longer true. In the 1980's it cost $100,000 to raise a child. My sister had 2 children, and my brother had two children, and in both cases the husbands had vasectomies after the second child.

As a social worker, many of the families I see are headed by a single woman, often on Public Assistance. I remember hearing a nun talk about the pregnant teen girls she counsels, and she explained that most of them reported that they had a child to give them the love that they were missing from their own childhood. Sometimes the women I see are these teens grown up, and now they are living on public assistance with 4 or more children. Sometimes they are good moms, and sometimes they are overwhelmed and have no idea how to feed and clothe their children when each new birth pushed them further below the poverty line.

I salute you for being liberal about birth control, but these are the mothers who don't use contraception or have abortions, because they are hoping that each new man will become the man of their dreams and take care of his family. You can imagine, I'm sure, how many of these men actually stay to care for their child and the 3 or 4 previous children. And, how many of these men will have vasectomies to prevent additional births? Are we, as a society, going to make a commitment to their children? Obama is trying to make such a commitment to education so that these children will do better in spite of growing up in a housing project or shelter.

Families in Distress:

I am a social worker, so I see many families in distress. I would just like to introduce to the conversation, that pregnancy and birth are not always as beautiful and sacred as you describe. Sometimes a family becomes homeless through no fault of their own. Sometimes a husband leaves, or an educated mother finds that she has to leave her employment because a child is born with severe birth defects. Some of these families are heroic, but life for the children growing up in a shelter or an overcrowded situation where mom had to move her husband and 3 toddlers back into Mom's apartment with two bedrooms, and now 4 grownups and 2 teenagers.

And, then there is the educated, employed mom who gives birth to a child with a birth defect. The old medical insurance rules allowed private insurance companies to deny insurance to such a child. I have seen moms who were professional women have to quit their jobs so their family could go on Medicaid. One Mom had quadruplets for her first pregnancy; they were born premature, and two caught a life threatening infection, Staphylococcus Aurelius while in the NICU. Her private health insurance quickly ran out -- life time maximum for those two children, and mom had to put everyone on Medicaid.

Medicaid allows their child to have the operations or the care or the equipment necessary to keep him/her alive. Their husbands will have to leave so they can keep their beginning level jobs, pay their school loans, and continue to supply $$ to the Mom and her children. If the husband stays, the family earns too much to be eligible for Medicaid and the children will die.

The new HCR rules prevent private insurance companies from doing this. The mom could keep her job, and the husband could stay home to help with his family. But, if conservatives have their way, we will be back to the scenario above. Is there some reason that conservatives want families to be in distress?

YOU Choose between A Woman's Right to Choose an Abortion or a Society Choosing to Protect Living Children:

Many Republicans now claim the "personal responsibility" card and deny that society has any responsibility for poor or disabled children. Now, I am not arguing for abortion, but I am arguing for a woman's right to choose her health, and for the health of her family. I'm making this argument, because our society chooses to abandon the children who are born to unfortunate circumstances. We don't have national health care, so those who have children who need extraordinary care end up on Welfare with their whole family. Oh, they also end up without the dad who earns too much to allow his children to have Medicaid.

When we have national health care, and offer jobs for all, then I will agree that Roe v Wade can have very limited use. Until then, I will not require a Mom and Dad to choose to destroy their family to make up for one mistake, or one birth defect, or the illness of a parent.

When society chooses to have better schools, and to repair neighborhoods where half the children of the poor or jobless are not being killed before they are 20 years old, or developing PTSD from watching their cousins, brothers and friends be killed or sent to prison, then I will agree that Roe v Wade can have very limited use.

I applaud your passion. I would like to encourage you to join me in fighting for the living child, who's already here and needing help. Sometimes it takes more than a mother -- it takes a community to support a child. But, for that we all have to make the higher choice.

Tax Rates and Revenue: Putting Reaganomics to Bed Once and For All

2010-11-06T10:57:00.016-04:00

THIRTY YEARS IN THE MAKING!

What About Population Growth?
Those who talk about tax revenue going up or down, or the GDP going up and down, never include population statistics. It makes all the other talk silly, because since 1947, the US population has more than doubled. It stands to reason, that this accounts for more jobs and more consumers, thus increasing GDP and tax revenue no matter what the government does. So, the best we can do is to look at relative changes, or where the trend was going before it changed. It should always go up at at least this rate of population growth.

When We Talk About Tax Revenue, Are We Talking About Personal Taxes or Corporate Taxes Or Both?

This also makes a difference. If we look at the difference that lowering personal income taxes has made from Reagan on, we see both ups and downs with most of the downs occurring in the last 10 years from GW Bush through the present. There is a flattening during Bush senior when he raised taxes to stop the growth of the Federal deficit, and then it improves again as a result of the Clinton era economic growth.

But, you will never see the GOP make the point that during Reagan's first 4 years, personal income tax revenue was flat to a little down between 1982 and 1983. Unemployment was at 9.5% in 1982. Reagan lowered the top tax rate from 70% to 50% in 1981, and lowered it again in 1986 to 28% which increased the National Debt far more than it increased revenue. We don't see any wondrous increase in the tax revenue in this graph, do we? Not until the Clinton years.

The National Debt went from 33% in 1980 to 51.9% of GDP by the end of 1988. And, to cover the debt, we increased borrowing from $700 billion to $3 trillion and went from being the world's largest creditor nation to being the world's largest debtor nation. This is far more evident in the graph below. This is the result of Reaganomics.

During Reagan's administration, it is recorded that Federal receipts grew at 8.2%, but since 2.5% of that was his increase in Social Security receipts, his income tax receipts grew at only 5.7% and his Federal outlays grew at 7.1%. This is why our National Debt increased. In Reagan's defense, most of this was an increase in Defense spending, bringing the defense budget back to where it had been at the end of the Vietnam conflict even though we weren't at war. Why do I say, "In Reagan's defense"? Because the GOP does not seem to count DOD expenses in the budget. When the GOP talks about reducing the Federal Budget, they are not talking about the DOD portion.

According to a United States Department of the Treasury economic study, the major tax bills enacted under Reagan, in the short term, significantly reduced (~-1% of GDP) government tax receipts. Separated out, however, it is clear that the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 was a massive (~-3% of GDP) decrease in revenues over the long term.

Corporate taxes were decreased during the Reagan era which not only contributed to the Federal deficit, but also shifted the Tax burden from almost 50% to 50%, individuals and corporations, to largely a burden on individuals. Note that the left side of this graph below are the Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson years.

The drop below 30% represents the Nixon, Ford, Carter to Reagan period. And, although the original Tea Party was a revolt against the secret deal between King George and the British East India Company, this Tea Party does not even know that it was conned by it's favorite president -- Reagan. Once corporate share of tax revenue dropped below 20%, only Clinton's boon got it back to a tiny bit over 20% again. Bush's war chest raised it above 20%, but wasn't that our billions, or, more correctly, China's billions which were lavished on the military industrial complex coming back in some tax revenue? I suspect that this is a large part of the distress felt by the members of the Neo-Tea Party. Individuals are now carrying the burden which was previously shared more equitably with Corporations.

The Shift From A Manufacturing Country to a Financial Country:

Reagan not only moved us from being a Creditor nation, to being a Debtor nation, but he made possible the transition from being a manufacturing and exporting nation, to being a financial and importing nation. It is this that allowed our banks to become "too big to fail." He encouraged the banks to offer credit cards, which increased their revenue stream, and gave consumers a way to increase their life style even though their wages were flat. This was the Reagan mystique. Middle class Americans felt they were in a boon time, when only the wealthiest 2% were actually doing better. There was no boon. There was an enormous increase in the debt of individual Americans which fueled business recovery at that time and our recent financial collapse.

This change from being a manufacturing and exporting country to being a financial and importing country is the reason we weren't able to add armor to our Hummers in Iraq. We aren't making steel any longer. We import it from China and Japan. Does this make you feel safe?

This change is also one of the reasons that our balance of trade is skewed in the wrong direction.

What Do We Need to Change?

Obama's investment in the research and development of green products: batteries, cars, solar and wind turbines and storage facilities is an attempt to create a new product line that can be manufactured in the USA. This may make up for any decrease in funding to the military-industrial complex.

This will not only create jobs when new products are ready to build, but it will increase revenue through both individual and corporate taxes, and will also help to correct our balance of trade. This will give us a way to correct the deficit that was launched by Reaganomics.

Tea Partiers, we welcome you to our side. Let's support policy that will move all of America forward rather than burying her beneath a mountain of debt to make the top 2% of Americans gluttonously wealthy. How much does a man need after the first billion dollars?

A billion dollars is $1,000,000,000, or enough to give away $1 million dollars, each month for 83 years and that is if the 1 billion isn't in a bank or invested in any way. They could buy 5 new Bentleys a month for as long as they lived. Or, they could pay all the expenses of Presidential candidate at the rate Barack Obama spent, for the next 10 presidential elections without a single other contributor.

The final insult, is that those earning a billion dollars are too often not producing anything. The top 12 hedge fund managers last year EACH earned more than a billion dollars and the top man earned more than $7 billion. This did nothing for our balance of trade, or our unemployment. Nothing was produced. Nothing was built. Nothing was discovered. Yet, 12 men now have the power to buy 10 presidents. Buying a few Congressmen was just the beginning.

The New Health Insurance Bill is Starting

2010-07-10T07:58:00.011-04:00

What is it about the health care bill that you don't like? People keep hollering about it, but it doesn't do anything that wasn't needed.

1 All Americans will have to have health care insurance. If private insurance is so good (as tea Party argued when I was fighting it) then won't the prices go down when more consumers enter the market? This is a rule of capitalism isn't it? When the market expands, the product becomes more efficient and the prices go down. This will make life a little easier for everyone.

2 Insurance companies must honor their contracts. If they sell health insurance, and a consumer (who has been paying faithfully for years and years) gets sick, they must cover the medical costs within the bounds of their contract. (Ins. companies have always had some procedures or wackado treatments that they didn't cover, and they will still be able to refuse to cover those procedures). This will lower costs of hospitalizations and doctors because they won't be stuck with unpaid health treatments.

3 Businesses need to either pay for their employees insurance, or face a tax penalty. This will insure that corps don't start cutting their employees health coverage just because there will now be a low cost list of insurance companies for those who are currently uninsured.

4 Those who are currently uninsured cost everyone else $$ because they use hospital ER's when they need to, even though they don't have health insurance. I took an older brother without insurance in Miami -- to Jackson Memorial I think it was called. And, we waited from 8 in the morning until 10 at night because there were so many uninsured people who needed health care. (My sister Trish and cousin Leslie, who have always had insurance, were with me and couldn't believe what they were seeing.) The cost of all those people is shared by taxes in the local community, and health ins companies are charged more by the hospitals who must cover those costs and you know who reimburses the insurance company costs -- the consumer of health insurance.

So, when some of those who have to buy insurance because of the new law can't afford it, the government will help them to do so. This will use some tax revenue. Americans have been paying the secret cost through increased insurance premiums anyway, so it really won't be any additional $$. It will make the uninsured at least partially responsible (something Tea Partiers and Libertarians are always advocating) for his family or himself, and it will move the added fiscal responsibility from the hospitals and insurance companies to the Federal Government. This should lower the cost of hospitalization by capitalistic standards since all visits will now be fully paid for.

So, when all is said and done, the costs of medical care should come down if the rules of capitalism are followed. However, if we find that insurance companies and/or hospitals and MDs prefer to add their savings to their profits rather than reimbursing the consumer, then those who have advocated for single payer or socialized medicine will have additional data to add to their arguments. Either way, we will have moved closer to a better health care system.

The Problem with the US Oil Policy

2010-06-26T11:06:00.007-04:00

Since the Tea-party and Libertarians on Twitter have been talking about "Barak Petroleum Company", I thought I would look into what that would mean.

For-Profit Major Oil Companies vs National Oil Companies

The major private oil companies control only 10% of the world’s existing oil and gas resource base according to the Baker Institute Energy Forum (http://www.rice.edu/energy/research/nationaloil/index.html).

Also, according to the Baker study, current producing countries are getting more favorable financial arrangements from national oil companies that look not to profit, but to future geopolitical and strategic aims factored into investments. Thus it is more likely that Asian and Russia national oil companies will be more successful in resource development in the Middle East, and that India’s ONGC and IOC; China’s Sinopec, CNPC, and Malaysia’s Petronas will continue to be more successful in Iran and Africa.

Perhaps it is time for the US to be thinking about a national oil company?

For-Profit Strategy

As an example of holding on to resources rather than developing them, major oil companies including Exxon held on to leases in Alaska at Point Thomson (believed to hold 25% of the known gas reserves in the state) for 31 years and when Alaska sought to reclaim the leases, Exxon sued. BP had attempted to cap Deepwater Horizon rather than putting it online as a producing well. Cementing problems were associated with 18 of 39 blowouts between 1992 and 2006, and 18 of 70 from 1971 to 1991. Oil companies seem to be having trouble with cementing and Deepwater Horizon is the most current and most horrific example of what can go wrong, going wrong.

Why would an oil company sit on an oil reserve rather than developing it? The reason behind any decision made by any international corporation is profit. Clearly it makes sense to hold on to some abundant resources until the price of oil goes up. This is simple supply and demand economics. If oil companies produce all that they can now, the supply will increase more than the demand and the price (and profit) will fall. If oil companies produce just enough now to hold the prices steady enough to keep the world addicted to oil, they will extend demand into the future. If on the other hand, oil companies reduce the supply, causing world prices to increase, the last big consuming countries will find it more economical to finance the research and the changeover to the next source of energy, whether it is solar, wind, thermal or hydrogen.

According to Forbes, of the top four producing reserves in the world today Iraq holds 3. The first on the Forbes list is Ghawar in Saudi Arabia and produces 4.5 million barrels per day. And these Middle Eastern sources are easy to reach without requiring the danger of deep water drilling or the costliness and dirtiness of cleaning Canadian oil sands. Clearly, higher profits are to be had from these easy to produce oil fields. And, these oil fields can produce at a lower cost, thus keeping the cost of oil from these regions low. This is why the "for-profit" oil companies would rather buy from these areas than pump their own oil from US or Canadian oil fields.

The National Policy of the US

Does the US have a national policy? A (secret) policy was developed by Dick Cheney and (secret) associates during the Bush presidency. But, no matter who was there, as long as private international corporations control our oil production we don't have an oil policy controlled by national interests. If, for any reason, the US needs extra oil, there is no way to control the flow. The private oil companies have no reason to do the bidding of either a Democratic President, or a Republican one. The price of oil climbed during the George Bush and Dick Cheney Presidency. (http://www.treehugger.com/oil-price-graph-12423.jpg)

The only way to have a national oil policy that takes national defense, the natural environment and national growth into consideration is to have a national oil company. (BP has the current contract with the US Pentagon to supply our troops.) The only way to insure safety and thoughtful production is to have and enforce a national oil policy.

“Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere efforts, intelligent direction and skillful execution. Such was the case with the World National Oil Companies Congress”

H.E. Nematzadeh, Ex-Deputy Minister of Petroleum, IRAN and President, NIORDC

BP's liabilities are likely to exceed $20 billion – factoring in the Justice Department's criminal probe , which could bring heavy fines, as well as a gusher of class-action lawsuits. Some estimates have reached as high as $40 billion, and are based on assumptions that the leak continues through the end of the summer, possibly worsened by hurricanes. Oil experts agree that BP may only survive if it takes on a partner; possibly a Chinese partner.

Even if BP makes a sincere effort to restore the Gulf, it cannot restore the livelihood of the fishermen and the seafood restaurants and the charter boats and it cannot replace the lost fish, amphibians, reptiles, mammals and birds. These creatures will have lost habitat and breeding grounds and breeding stock that will affect the environment for years and years to come from the Gulf, up the eastern coast and across the Atlantic to Ireland and England where the Gulf stream tempers the climate that would otherwise be harsh and damp.

The Tea Party Movement

2010-03-28T08:02:00.029-04:00

Mindbridge has been interviewing and discussing politics with Tea Partiers for a few years now, although, I used to call them Republicans. The traditional Republicans aren't angry. They were as upset with Bush for his lack of fiscal responsibility as the rest of the country and so they weren't surprised when a Democratic landslide took away their power. Many of them even voted for Obama.

The angry Republicans are the Tea Partiers. These are the Republicans and Independents who listen to the news blaming Obama for the deficit and job loss. These are Republicans and Independents who have bought into the idea that Democratic and Liberal are the same, and that they are also Socialist and sometimes Fascist.

I argued for years, and now I understand the positions of the Tea Party. Here are the definitions according to the Tea Partiers:

If you ever wanted to help someone else, or to have someone help out your family or friends, your neighbors or those who are unemployed, you are Socialist.
If you ever thought a law should force such generosity, you are a Fascist.
If you ever thought that there should be a law to protect the public from corporations that spew toxic sludge into the drinking water, you are a liberal Commie and a Fascist. Why? Because you are costing the Tea Partiers more for the product and there might be job loss because you are restricting the "free market".

The Five Segments of the Tea Party Movement

The Tea Party Movement has 5 distinct segments. It's members are sometimes in one segment, and sometimes in several. Each segment is powerfully fueled by angry emotions.

The fiscal Movement started in the late 80's. There was distress about the growing deficit which was sometimes blamed on Democratic spending, but started with the tax cuts and Reaganomics or Voodoo economics. This was the ignition of Ross Perot's electoral movement. There are multiple reasons for this distress. There was a frightening inflation in the late 70's which lowered middle and lower income people's buying power. The height of buying power for minimum wage jobs was at its zenith in the 60's and has been going down ever since. The reductions in manufacturing jobs started in the 60's, which meant that those non-college educated people have had fewer and fewer middle class jobs to support them. This part of the Tea Party protest is angry about their own fiscal struggles.
There is racism. Racists have targeted liberals and Democrats and "big Government" since Kennedy and Johnson brought the force of the Federal Government against racism in the 60's. More recently, there is the racism that is targeting the Black American who holds the highest position in the Nation, and this makes the Tea Partiers experience rage. Their grotesque depictions of President Obama in social media have shown their disrespect and disdain of the person whom over 64% of the population put in office, and still support.
The birthers are an offshoot of the racists, but have a fake birth certificate to try to prove that Obama was born in Kenya rather than Hawaii. This birth certificate is actually an altered Australian birth certificate. See the two below.
There are anti-abortionists who have targeted any politician who sought to defend the law of the land which allows abortion or who are allowing the Hyde Amendment to insure that no federal money is used to pay for abortion. They want abortions to be stopped altogether.
There are the NRA anti-Gun Control people who have been distressed by increasing gun control, primarily in urban areas where guns crimes are prevalent and public defenders such as police are shot down by automatic weapons. These are the people who are raging with epithets such as RELOAD, CLEAN YOUR GUNS NOW. These are the ones who have caused a shortage on ammunition because they think there's going to be a government confiscation of their weapons.

Failure of the News Media:

The TV news media doesn't earn new listeners by explaining away public distress and helping to create calm. They increase their audience when they show conflict. Public news used to have the mandate to tell the whole truth, and they were never meant to be part of the profits of their corporation. But, since this has changed, we now have the news media covering the greatest conflict because it makes money for their corporate owners and bosses.

During the Bush years, there were peaceful anti-war protests that were not covered in spite of having thousands of protesters. More recently, the Tea Party protests have been covered although they only sport hundreds of protesters because they are loud and misbehaved. Last week there was a protest in DC which had tens of thousands of protesters seeking legislation regarding undocumented immigrants. This was not covered by a single TV news station in spite of the large numbers of protesters. Yet, the few Tea Party members who have advocated violence against Democrats who voted for health insurance reform have gotten a great deal of publicity and notoriety.

MikeVanderboegh published this blog posting: "To all modern Sons of Liberty: THIS is your time. Break their windows. Break them NOW.”

Vanderboegh is a member of an Alabama militia group who is headlining an open-carry gun rally in Northern Virginia next month. He has time to organize this because he once worked as a warehouse manager but now lives on government disability checks. He said he receives $1,300 a month because of his congestive heart failure, diabetes and hypertension. The news media doesn't mention that this Tea Partier who is against gun legislation and against health insurance reform is living off government health care and government income for his disability.

The news media fans the flames of dissent. Showing the anger of a few Tea Party members (3 to 3000) and allowing them to air their views without correcting their facts implies to their listeners that these views are true and worth listening to.

The right wing radio and TV commentators all air their talking points taken directly from the right wing think tanks' daily press releases. They consistently promote Ayn Rands idea of "Free Market Capitalism". They hide the fact that when the market was "free" in America, we had a Great Depression which followed the Age of the Robber Barrons. The Free Market rewards big and bigger business and squashes local small business, and it promotes lower and lower wages and does nothing to protect the environment or the local populations from the costs of the waste of this business run in this manner.

The Truth of the Free Market Corporation

The purpose of any corporation is to increase profits. It is not in business to benefit society. It is not in business to offer good wages to workers. It is not in business to protect the environment.

It is the responsibility of government to balance the health of the corporation with the health of society. If the government officials are more influenced by donations of big business than by the needs of society, then we have corporatism. This is the backbone of fascism.

The media is part of the free market, not of government. They also have the fiduciary responsibility to increase profit rather than to protect society. Formerly, there were laws (in exchange for access to the public airwaves) that required their news arms to portray the truth so that the public would have access to accurate information at the local, state and national levels. This accurate information is necessary for an informed electorate who can then make informed decisions when they vote.

This is not what we have now because those laws restricting the media have been removed. As foretold by the movie Network, the news arms of TV Corporations are now required to produce profit. As we all know, conflict and discord produce more profit than peace and calm. Charlie Rose will never have more listeners than Bill O'Reilly or Jerry Springer or Howard Stern, no matter how important their information is. Who then is the more informed voter? What then becomes the public interest?

And, then there is the power of the advertiser. The interests of the advertiser is enforced by their abundance or their withdrawal of advertising. This has a huge effect on the Corporate decisions and on their programming. Phil Donohue had great ratings for MSNBC, but was taken off the air when his anti-war shows opposed the corporate interests of General Electric whose profits would soar from the coming war against Iraq.

Jon Stewart was able to tell the truth of the war against Iraq because he was on Comedy Central and not part of a major network owned by a member of the military industrial complex. When invited to move to another network, he refused.

Not only does the free market internalize profits and externalize costs, it controls the media which controls the facts that the voting population hears. It does this via coordinating its information from the American Enterprise Institute, Informing Corporate Policy and the News Media since the 1970's.

Government Shutdown by Republicans

2010-03-02T13:21:00.012-05:00

Why is Senator Jim Bunning Blocking an Extension of Unemployment Benefits to 500,000, Transportation Programs that Employ others, and Medicare Payments to Docs?

This is the grossest misuse of the filibuster. In this case, Bunning was the sole Senator objecting to the bill. His stated objection is that it was not paid for.... Interesting that his party voted down the "Pay as You Go" bill proposed by the Democrats which would have required that equivalent cost cutting or program cutting accompanies each bill.

Rumors are that he also wanted another tax reduction for the wealthiest Americans which is not a bill being brought to the Senate floor. Some think that his filibuster is meant to force the Democrats to give him the tax cuts he wants.

Whatever his reasons, this is not the majority rule that the Republicans demanded between 2000 and 2008 -- an "up or down vote." He has just caused 100,000 Americans to lose their benefits immediately. About 400,000 more will lose their unemployment benefits in two weeks according to the Department of Labor.

If they lose their federal benefits now, even if an extension bill goes through, they might have to reapply which will delay their next check by 3 weeks to 2 months in some states. Many of these are people with families to support.

Senator Dick Durbin proposed making the Senator actually perform his filibuster by standing and talking from Thursday until whenever he would give up.
Many young Senators were prepared to attend the all-night session. This was started on Thursday February 25th, but the unprepared Senator Banning resorted to yelling obscenities at other lawmakers.

Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee took his defense and reminded the others in attendance that Senator Bunning was 87 years old. Senator Durbin agreed to end the session shortly before midnight, perhaps before Bunning would have a serious health crisis of his own.

Meanwhile, the Republican Senators don't seem to care about an additional 500,000 jobless people will lose ther health insurance subsidies under the Cobra program during the month of March. I wonder if Senator Bunning has considered that there might be some children awaiting life saving surgeries? He is so determined to make his point....

This bill also blocks an extension of Medicare pay increases to docs, which will lower their reimbursements by 21%. Many docs will simply stop seeing Medicare patients which will mean that many seniors will be without the docs they have come to know and to trust. -- Wasn't it the Republicans who keep voting against all the Health Reform bills because "We want Americans to be able to keep their insurance and to keep their docs!" And, didn't they scream out in the late summer, "We don't want our seniors to have their benefits cut!"

Well, all Americans should know that it is the Republicans who are voting against Medicare reimbursement to doctors and voting against the extension of Unemployment, but this is not all.

There is also an extension of the Highway Trust Fund which employs 2,000 employees. These employees have been furloughed since Monday without pay and without the ability to sign up for Unemployment since they are still, technically, employed. The association of State Highway and Transportation officials said states are losing more than $153 million a day in federal reimbursements.

This is only one case, but Republicans this last year have used the filibuster (see chart on cloture voting) more than any other administration. To give you an idea of the changes involved, Democrats held up a total of 10 of George Bush's judicial appointees. Last year one Senator held up 50 of President Obama's appointees because he objected to the President's consideration of Boeing for government contracts. This is Senator Richard Shelby of Lockheed Martin Corporation, oh, excuse me, of Alabama.

Cloture Voting chart thanks to Yglesias of Think Progress. Note that last year Republicans almost doubled even the blockade used during the Bill Clinton presidency. Politics is one thing, but this is affecting millions of Americans in a very harmful way. Those who lose unemployment benefits may have no where to go. The children and seniors who have no health providers to go to may suffer or die.

Perhaps this is a reason to ask for impeachment, not because some political leader cheated on his wife -- but for those who cheat on the American people!

The Frodo Baggins Diet, and Disturbing Food Additive No. 2

2010-02-26T18:38:00.007-05:00

Letting Go of Weight Right Away

We mentioned in the last article that there are additives that the food industry is including in their recipes. For us, this is a recipe for disaster. As we give them up we can lose belly fat without really dieting. The first is the worst and if you avoid it you will lose weight.

I learned of these recently and have taken two out of my diet and changed the way that I eat in order to repair the damage done. I have already lost 7 pounds in 5 days. I don't believe that this is just water weight. I have given up two addictive substances that were preventing normal sugar and fat processing.

What do the Food Additives Do?

There are addictive food additives that are placed in foods to make them taste better, and as it happens, they all prevent our natural hormones from telling our brain that we have had enough to eat. All 7 of these products cause bloating and inflammation as well as the storing of fat. The worst and most prevalent of these is High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS). It excites the pancreas and insulin is dispensed into the blood stream to remove the excess sugar. This quick release of insulin causes a quick change of the sugar into fat. This fat is then stored for future energy needs.

I have found, as many have, that every time I dieted, I lost weight but afterward I gained more than I had ever lost. Part of this is that any low calorie or low carb or low fat diet will signal to your body that you are starving. Your body responds by slowing your metabolism. This makes it harder to lose weight. So, we are not advocating any starvation. We advocate just the opposite as you will see below.

Now, I don't eat much food from the inside aisles, such as cereals or crackers and cookies, or cakes and boxed deserts. But, even so, I have had to work hard to avoid HFCS. It is far harder I know for families with young children who want those sweet snacks.

I do eat apple sauce. I thought that apples were safe and healthy. But, once I found out about HFCS, I found that practically every applesauce has this as an ingredient. This in one ingredient that causes bally fat! And, a natural apple has a low glycemic level which means that it doesn't cause insulin to be released. Once insulin is released, the sugar is converted into fat. And, if HFCS has been added, the pancreas becomes active and the fat is placed on your belly or around your heart or liver or pancreas. So, although something like Applesauce which should be a harmless and healthy snack becomes a fat loading, body bloating snack.

Avoiding the First Two Additives will help You to Let Go of Weight

The first of these harmful additives, High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) has even been added to pet foods. It is highly addictive and shuts down your leptin, which is the hormone that tells you brain that you've had enough to eat. Note what a good idea this is from the standpoint of the Food Industry. We will eat more donuts and more cookies and more soda or fruit juice than we planned or than we need.

Without leptin, you might keep eating until you can't physically push any more food into your stomach. If you have ever come close to finishing a cake or bag of cookies by yourself, you know what I'm talking about.

The second is coffee. Sorry, but the caffeine in coffee prevents fat metabolism. Because of this, coffee drinkers have a harder time breaking down their fat and have to diet or workout even harder than others to drop the same weight.

I am a lifelong coffee lover. I tried to give it up when I heard that US chemical companies didn't stop producing DDT when it was outlawed here. They simply sent it to Latin America where it was sprayed on the coffee harvest.... I weakened and started drinking it again. But this time I think I can do it and stick with it. I just don't like the idea that it keeps the fat on me and harms the farmers who spray the trees and the environment of those trees and probably exposes you to DDT residue.

What is the Frodo Baggins Diet?

The four things I did first:

Eating more frequently, five times a day or every three hours as in the Frodo Baggins Diet will allow leptin to be released when it should be. This will also offset the habitual insulin release when we overeat or when we eat HFCS.
Avoid HFCS
Eat smaller meals balanced with protein (1/2 cup) and low glycemic carbohydrates (1 cup) five times a day and your own natural system will start to let go of fat.
Stop coffee caffeine because this prevents fat processing. Changing to green tea reverses the process and encourages your body to break down fat for energy.

This is not a low calorie or low carb or low fat diet. This is simply spreading out your appropriate calories and carbs throughout the day so that you don't experience hunger. This all day "grazing" will keep your pancreas quiet and your body satisfied. Without hunger or sugar surges, you will stop storing the food you eat. And, eating uses calories. If you are eating 5 times a day, you will use calories to process that food.

Your stomach will shrink back to a normal, healthy size. We tend to overeat when we eat only three times a day and this stretches our stomach. Then, we want to eat until we feel "full." This cycle is stopped the minute we spread our fuel out to 5 times a day.

Your metabolism will speed up because in a few days your body will realize that it is no longer being starved.

However, there is more to it if you are interested. For more on the Frodo Baggins diet, visit here: Mindbridge-LOA

If you want to check out another source, this was a presidential study.

Nancy J. Stremmel is the co-owner and developer of: Mindbridge-LOA, the compendium of information on the Law of Attraction. She is a writer, licensed Social Worker, educator, artist and therapist. She believes that everyone can make the Law of Attraction work for them.

Other Articles by Author: Ezines

Which Food Companies are Raising Their Profits by Putting Your Health at Risk?

2010-02-23T15:55:00.007-05:00

The Toyota Motor Corporation is about to go on trial. They were accused of hiding the failure of their acceleration system and putting their customers at risk. Yet, there are obesity additives added to most products on your supermarket shelves. This is done on purpose whereas Toyota suffered a failure in engineering. They didn't intend their customers to have accidents.

Why aren't these food corporations being tried for additives that cause their customers to gain weight, and particularly to gain belly fat?

Why is Belly Fat so Bad for Your Health?

Belly fat has been identified as the most harmful placement of fat. It has been linked to diabetes, breathing problems and heart disease. There is also evidence that it is connected to liver and pancreatic cancer. If a man has a waist size of 40 inches, or if a woman has a waist measuring 35 inches or more, the health problems are close at hand.

How is it that Food companies contribute to the belly fat of their customers? They do it in the same way that the tobacco companies increased the tobacco addiction of their customers. They add addictive substances to their food products and many of these products have been associated with belly fat in numerous studies.

The studies aren't being shown in the national media because the advertising dollars are too powerful. All you have to do is to reduce these additives to drop 30 or more pounds and 12 inches in 12 weeks, largely of your belly fat.

You don't even have to give up your favorite pizza or Mexican foods. Simply change brands if yours has been loading you up with the addictive or belly fat increasing food additives.

What do the Food Additives Do?

All 7 of the major culprits are addictive. All 7 of these products cause bloating and inflammation.

I found that every time I dieted, I lost weight but afterward I gained more than I had ever lost. And, I don't eat much food from the inside aisles, such as cereals or crackers and cookies, or cakes and boxed deserts. But, even so, I have had to work hard to avoid these additives.

I do eat apple sauce. I thought that apples were safe and healthy. But, once I found out about the food additives, I found that practically every applesauce has at least one of these ingredients. These are the ingredients that cause belly fat! And, a natural apple has a low glycemic level which means that it doesn't cause insulin to be released. Once insulin is released, the sugar is converted into fat. If it's one of these dastardly 7 additives, the fat is placed on your belly or around your heart or liver or pancreas.

How Do We Avoid these 7 Additives?

The first of these ingredients is High Fructose Corn Syrup. If you try to avoid this ingredient it is very difficult. You will see that it is even added to pet foods. It is highly addictive and shuts down your leptin, which is the hormone that tells you brain that you've had enough to eat. Note what a good idea this is from the standpoint of the Food Industry.

Without this hormone, you could keep eating until you can't physically push any more food into your stomach. If you have ever come close to finishing a cake or bag of cookies by yourself, you know what I'm talking about. Eating more frequently as in the Frodo Baggins Diet, will allow leptin to be released when it should be.

For more on the 7 deadly food additives, watch here, and here.

Thanks, and we'll be back soon.

Is There any Truth in Media?

2010-01-27T15:44:00.006-05:00

Some tell me to get over it. The media is out to make money just like any other corporation.

But, the Media is Not Like any Other Corporation

You and I own the airwaves.... We do not own any patents or oil. But, we do, collectively own the air waves.

This is the reason that news, was once regulated, and could be again if corporations didn't own too many American politicians. The FCC is charged with insuring that the "public" airwaves show only what's appropriate....

The same media that yells and screams about how we are losing our freedoms is at the same time happily internalizing the rewards and profits of using the public airwaves to dupe the public!

Is this what you want? Just because it has happened doesn't mean you have to allow it to continue.

The FCC

issues licenses and
coordinates telecommunications policy efforts with industry and with other governmental agencies — federal, tribal, state and local — in serving the public interest.

In exchange for those licenses, they used to require some period of time each day that was for truth, rather than profit.

Isn't it in the interest of a democracy to have some period of truth available each day.

If all the media is free to tell whatever lies they chose to tell, how can the public ever know who to vote for?

I am not ready to give it up to the corporations just yet. I would like to see the American public make some demands in exchange for using the airwaves and in exchange for having their vote as they have done in Europe.

Sherman Anti-trust Laws

There are laws to allow competition and to give a fighting chance to the little guy. Are you writing to your Congressmen and Senators to enforce the anti-trust laws?

Since we're talking about the media, the ownership of media outlets (tv stations, radio stations, newspapers and magazines) used to be regulated so that there could not be a concentration if a few hands. In Italy, one man just bought up most of the outlets and then tried to get himself elected "God".

In the US, there were hundreds of owners of TV stations, with many local owners. Now, there are 7 corporate o wners I believe.

The internet is, right now, free. But, now that corps can put unlimited funds into politicians' reelection efforts, how long do you think the FCC (the only control we have) is going to protect the freedom of the internet?

Bectel owns all the water rights in Iraq.

As Steve Pavlina says, "I am here to wake you up."

"Too Big to Fail

2010-01-27T15:07:00.005-05:00

I decided to take a look at the history of this....

The first major bank to fail in the US since the FDIC was established was United States National Savings Bank, worth $1.5 billion. Shortly thereafter, on October 8, 1974, the Franklin National Bank in New York also failed. -- This was not a bailout but the FDIC insured depositors. Caused by mismanagement and fraud, it was at the time the largest bank failure in the history of the U.S. Out of the debacle came disgrace and jail sentences for several bankers, a suicide in Italy, huge losses for the bank's stockholders -- but not its depositors -- and a black eye for the federal bank regulatory system. A couple of months after Franklin was declared insolvent on Oct. 8, 1974, most of its assets were taken over by European-American (now known as EAB).

The United States Congress granted all thrifts in 1980, including savings and loan associations, the power to make consumer and commercial loans and to issue transaction accounts. This was the beginning of bank deregulation. Those regulations had kept us from another great depression.

In the 1980's there were increasing bailouts. In early May, 1984 Continental Illinois National Bank and Trust was seized by the US government as "too big to fail". Lytle later pleaded guilty to a count of defrauding Continental of $2.25 million and receiving $585,000 in kickbacks for approving risky loan applications. Lytle was sentenced to three and a half years in a federal prison. The US government remained in control until 10 years later when it was acquired by what is now Bank of America.

Lincoln Savings and Loan

The Lincoln Savings led to the Keating five political scandal, in which five US senators were implicated in an influence-peddling scheme. It was named for Charles Keating, who headed Lincoln Savings and made $300,000 as political contributions to them in the 1980s. Three of those senators—Alan Cranston (D-CA), Don Riegle (D-MI), and Dennis DeConcini (D-AZ)—found their political careers cut short as a result. Two others—John Glenn (D-OH) and John McCain (R-AZ)—were rebuked by the Senate Ethics Committee for exercising "poor judgment" for intervening with the federal regulators on behalf of Keating.

Silverado Savings and Loan

Silverado Savings and Loan collapsed in 1988, costing taxpayers $1.3 billion. Neil Bush, son of then Vice President of the United States George H. W. Bush, was Director of Silverado at the time. Neil Bush was accused of giving himself a loan from Silverado, but he denied all
wrongdoing.

The US Office of Thrift Supervision investigated Silverado's failure and determined that Neil Bush had engaged in numerous "breaches of his fiduciary duties involving multiple conflicts of interest." Although Bush was not indicted on criminal charges, a civil action was brought against him and the other Silverado directors by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; it was eventually settled out of court, with Bush paying $50,000 as part of the settlement, the Washington Post reported.

As a director of a failing thrift, Bush voted to approve $100 million in what were ultimately bad loans to two of his business partners. And in voting for the loans, he failed to inform fellow board members at Silverado Savings & Loan that the loan applicants were his business partners.

Neil Bush paid a $50,000 fine and was banned from banking activities for his role in taking down Silverado, which cost taxpayers $1.3 billion.

If you are interested in the numbers rather than in some of the details, this site has the numbers from 1930 to now.

You will see the big increase during the 1980's and again in 2008 and 2009.

Note that the "Too big to fail" expression was only coined by the Reagan government. Before that FDIC protected depositors, but not investors or officers. In the 1980's the process of protecting officers and investors began.

This was not the intention of the original bank regulations. Of course this would lead investors to want to invest in banks that are "too big to fail." -- This was the beginning of our present troubles and can be reversed....

Oh, please note also that when the US government managed Continental Illinois National Bank and Trust, no one was screaming about Socialism. It was smarter than to leave the crooks in charge as Bush and Obama did this time.

And, BTW, Neil Bush, brother of George W Bush, was the first banker convicted of fraud who didn't go to jail. -- Prior to that, when fraud was uncovered, Bankers paid for their costs to the US Taxpayer....

Americans Don't Feel Health Care Reform Goes Far Enough

2010-01-12T13:24:00.004-05:00

Listen up Congress and Senate!

In a new CBS poll , most Americans believe that the Health Care Reform doesn't go far enough, with the next highest marks going to those who believe it goes too far and the least number believing that it is about right. When asked about how it does in controlling costs, the greatest number believe it does not go far enough with the second highest number believing it goes too far and the least again believing that it is about right. The numbers break out the same way when asked whether the current legislation is regulating health insurance costs as it should.

When asked about their support of Democrats or Republican handling of health care reform, the Democrats come out a little better with 57% disapproving of their handling while 61% disapprove of how the Republicans are handling it.

This Industry Does NOT Honor It's Contracts

Some Americans have been caught up in the "anti-government" modality and I honor their commitment, but the health insurance industry testified before Congress that they had the right, and would not give up the right, to cancel the contracts of those who got sick. This they call Rescission of Coverage. Fancy name or not, it means they won't pay your bills if they don't want to.

This industry does not deserve to be supported by government, but yet, there are many Republican and Democratic Blue Dog politicians, and one Independent (Lieberman) who have supported them. Americans are sick and tired of taking second place to Corporations. The poll above shows that although some are cautious of Government regulations, more are fed up with the health insurance industry in the US. The question about regulating this industry had the highest "not far enough" ranking of all the questions above.

The Fillibuster is to Fight Corruption, not to Foster it.

2009-12-24T11:23:00.004-05:00

Senate Republicans and Senator Joe Lieberman have forgotten that they are in Washington to serve America. They voted against:

Guaranteed affordable health care ( such as the public option or lowering the Medicare age limit that would offer price protection through competition)
Legislation protecting the insurance customer from being dropped from their insurance
Legislation protecting the insurance customer from arbitrary financial lifetime limits
Legislation protecting the insurance customer from Government interference in their insurance plan (limiting what the private insurance companies cover, such as abortion)

Let's look at it another way. The Republican Senators, and Joe Lieberman voted for:

Forcing 30 million more Americans onto the private health insurance plans without any price protections
Allowing insurance companies to continue to defraud customers into paying premiums when there is no intention to actually pay for their health care
Allowing insurance companies to declare any financial limits as to coverage that they choose
Limiting the type of coverage that private insurance companies can offer (preventing them from paying for legal procedures such as abortion).

Every single Republican Senator voted for the above abuses of the American people. Luckily for us, they lost the vote!

Truth from a Fellow American

2009-12-18T15:46:00.003-05:00

Yesterday, I was at the IGA grocery store, and got to talking to the grocery manager who was stocking the shelves behind me. I was looking at the tea, which wasn't on my list. We like an assortment of black and green teas, as well as flavored teas for after dinner, and I was trying to remember which ones we had recently finished. I must have been there long enough that he thought I might be interested in a conversation.

"My wife just called from Walmart" he said, "and whatever they might say about the recession, she says the store is empty."

This triggered my thoughts about Walmart, and as I was shopping at my local store, and he was employed by my local store, I thought it was worth a mention. He seemed to read my mind, because he continued.

"I know what they say about Walmart," he responded, "but they have the lowest prices, and several of he (Mr. Walmart) loses money on several of his products just because he promises to have to lowest prices."

I admitted that they had the lowest prices, and reminded him that I usually shopped locally so that local merchants would stay near where I lived. (The Walmart was 30 miles away.) I then explained the movie about Walmart which he hadn't seen. A couple had an invention and they wanted Walmart to pick it up because that would insure their financial success. Walmart told them the price they wanted to pay for it. This price was much lower than the couple's original plan, and they eventually found that they could only produce it at that price if they had it manufactured in China. They did, and Walmart agreed to sell it for them.

Overseas Manufacturing is Hurting Us

He agreed that it was a shame that US goods were being manufactured overseas, but that if they were the least expensive....

I suggested that the big corporations would do well to remember that if they didn't hire US workers, that there would be an ever shrinking market. If there is no one to buy, there won't be those great big profits for them.

He then told me a story that you would only hear from someone who had been in the grocery business for years and years.

Corporate Greed has Increased Since Owners Have Sold to CEO-run Corporations

He used to work at Waldbaum, when it was owned by Mr. Waldbaum. They marked up their goods about 15%. There were 75,000 full time employees. Mr. Waldbaum paid good wages and took care of his employees as well as his customers. He was a millionaire and his stores did a large business.

A&P then bought the chain. They fired 65,000 full time employees. They increased the markup to 30%. This increased profits greatly, but the chain's revenue dropped to half of what it had been. My grocery manager, Larry, explained that this kind of greed was happening everywhere. We didn't have business owners anymore, but CEO's. And, he added, CEO's don't care about anything but profit and they don't care about anyone but themselves.

He said that when he was young, people were paid well for what they did. He bought his home when he was still in his 20's as many of his friends did. It was a shame that wages were so low for most people these days that they couldn't afford to pay rent, energy, phone and insurance and feed a family and that the CEO's were earning billions. "They will never understand what it's like for most people who have to worry about how to pay their heating bill" he added.

Before Ronald Reagan, corporate CEO's earned no more than 25 times the salary of their lowest paid employee. If the receptionist earned $7/hour, the CEO would earn no more than $175/hour. William McGuire of United Health Group is paid $234 a minute or $14040/hour. There are people in America earning less in a year than he earns in an hour.

Those who are paid these exorbitant salaries are people who can fire 65,000 Americans in a minute and people who can cut off a woman just diagnosed with breast cancer from health insurance for mistating her weight 5 years ago.... These are rare people. These are psychopaths who have no feelings for other people.

There are Solutions:

Larry had some solutions:

Restore the Tariff, so that it will NOT save money to manufacture overseas
Return Taxes on those earning more than $500,000 per year to 90% as it was during Eisenhower's presidency.

Christmas, HR3962 and Stupak

2009-12-08T16:55:00.003-05:00

Those who want the Stupak Amendment added to HR3962 are against the "killing of innocent children" no matter whether they are already dead or would be born without a heart or a brain.

We all agree that the killing of healthy innocents is wrong, although some of us think it matters how many cells a zygote has and whether or not that zygote would be able to live after birth. Yet, these same anti-abortion Christians/Jews don't support the public option. I have tried to point out that once those children are born, their families might need support. They then tell me that it is the woman's "personal responsibility".

I have pointed out that the woman was accepting her responsibility when she made the difficult choice to have an abortion, and it was the Christian/Jew who took away her ability to make that decision. Therefore, it becomes the Christian/Jew's responsibility, at least in part I think, to insure that she has the means to properly care for that child.

"No" says the Christian/Jew. She should have kept her pants zipped. (Let's not get into the dress code here....) I pointed out that the man could have kept his pants zipped.... The Christian/Jew answers, that it is their personal responsibility also.

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness

A person can only be responsible if s/he has life and liberty, and authority over his/her own life.

When the founders wrote the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence, they lived in a land that had water with abundant fish, and in a land with abundant game and timber. Any healthy person with some skills could live abundantly. If a family was large, you simply chopped down a few trees and built an addition to your home. It was more hands for fishing, farming or for cooking. This gave people authority over their own lives.

This is not so true today. For a person living in poverty, it's very difficult to provide for a family. The larger a family becomes, the more stress is put on the family economy. This stress forces a family to make decisions between buying health insurance, or paying the mortgage, or between after school activities and private school, or even Mom's medication and food for dinner. Many upper and middle class men are choosing to have vasectomies to limit family growth.

But, what about the woman whose boyfriend or husband doesn't have a vasectomy? Should she allow all her children to suffer if she becomes pregnant? We certainly can't answer this here, but it is not such a simple problem once a pregnancy has started.

Let's talk a little more about authority over one's life

In urban areas, there is a strong correlation between living or working near a power plant, and respiratory disease. As you probably know, power plants are not generally put in the wealthy areas where people have health insurance. They are built in the poorer areas where people have low paying jobs that don't come with health insurance.

These families without private health insurance take their asthmatic children or elders to the nearest hospital ER or free health clinic. These are costly visits for the US government and are partly responsible for the rapidly increasing costs of Medicare/aid.

Those Christians/Jews who speak so easily of preventing abortions are not accounting for the environmental illnesses that are part of living in a poor area. The poor have less access to clean air, a stress-free environment and fresh vegetables. This contributes to an increased incidence of asthma and other illnesses.

These families do not have the freedom to move to a better location, far from power plants. However, Medicare for all would give these families greater authority over their lives. They would have access to a family physician who could help with preventive care and family planning as well as consistent palliative care.

Community Responsibility

One might expect that the Christian/Jew who insists on preserving life would also seek to protect those lives. This is not the case. Those who speak against abortions do not generally accept the principle of community responsibility. They call this "communism" or "socialism". They speak against community responsibility as an affront to their "freedom".

It is alright for a private health insurance executive to earn a salary of millions of dollars, yet, they are blind to any connection between this salary and the high cost of health insurance. This is "free enterprise". They blame increasing health costs on the government.

In every other country that has government health care, costs are lower and outcomes are better. Their argument is easily refuted, but the anti-abortionists are arguing from principle rather than from fact or history.

So, the anti-abortionist insists that they have the right to prevent a woman from exercising free choice over her family size but that the woman does not have the right to expect any responsible assistance from them.

Right to Life

This is the most absurd phrase in the American political lexicon. Those who identify with this term generally:

Believe in preventing abortions (thus forcing more births) but not in taking care of those children
Believe that most Moslems are political extremists and terrorists and should be killed
Believe that the US has the right to kill and that the soldier can do no wrong until s/he comes home and needs health care and benefits because s/he can't work to support him or herself
Believe that Capital Punishment is a deterrent to murder, and that state sanctioned murder is fine
Believe that doctors who care for women seeking abortions can (or should) be murdered because they murder fetus'
Believe that wealthy CEO's who cause the deaths or illness of other Americans through extreme pollution or rescission of health insurance are not murderers but "free market capitalists" which is somehow close to godliness or sainthood.
Believe that government officials who seek to provide christian charity to those who can't provide for themselves, are anti-American

I have to admit that I can't see the logic in this position. This is a lot of killing for someone who claims to believe in the "right to life." Can anyone explain this to me? Please comment and I promise I will write you back.

Motorola Droid Review

2009-11-09T12:37:00.007-05:00

The Newest, thinnest, sliding phone for $199, and with a two year contract you get a $100 rebate! Whoo, hoo.

Great Features:

The Screen is beautiful! It has a very clear display, more clear than the IPhone. A simple tap zooms in or out of an app. And, you can scroll through your contacts on the screen.

The keys on the keyboard are close together and this takes a little practice if you have heavy thumbs.... The virtual keyboard is easier to use and has a nice little vibration when you strike a key.

The Google Maps application is fabulous. You can easily scroll across the map directly on the screen With this phone, you won't need another nav system. It gives perfect directions, quite loudly, and quickly recalculates if you take a different turn.

It allows on screen widgets for easy access. This will please busy Twitter or Facebook users. When the Droid is "on" you are notified immediately of any new Twitter updates. If the Droid is "off" with a dark screen, there's an LED light in the upper right hand corner that flashes different colors for different applications, such as email, or Twitter.

Not So Great...

The Facebook sync is a little tedious as it has no way of separating the "bob"s or the "Trish"s, but you can do this ahead of time by renaming your contacts to match their facebook id's which will be unique.

If you like downloading music, you can copy from your computer by mounting the SD card into your USB and copy the files manually. Or, you can get Sailing Media (WIndows/Mac) to copy ITunes playlists.

As with any Bluetooth phone with a WIFI radio, or any phone that keeps apps up and running, this uses power. Some owners have complained about a short runtime battery. This can be fixed by turning off apps that you aren't using. One user who bought it on Friday, has found that without special treatment, his charge lasts from 8am to 7pm, which is before he generally gets home. One other site set the screen lightness to max, set the media app to "repeat all songs" and the screen to "never sleep". They used 1 hour of Google navigation. They got 7 hours of battery life.

The camera is not the strength of the Droid as many users have complained, but at this time there are only 2 camera apps in the Android marketplace so this will likely get better when there has been more innovation in this area.

General Review by Mobile Tech

Peace is Coming! It's Election Day in the USA

2009-11-03T12:45:00.016-05:00

And, health care is coming too, because those of us who want what's good are now focusing on what we want rather than what we don't want. This was a big mistake we made in 2004. I pray that we continue today with the insights that we had in 2008. The article here is one that I just wrote for Ezine Articles. It seemed appropriate for today as well.

Now, take notice of the beautiful blue artwork to the left. This Blog Blast for Peace is the work of Please join if you have a blog. The idea is to flood the blog-world with Dona Nobis Pacem.... But, let Mimi tell you. Click on her artwork to the left.

__________________________________________

According to Universal Law and Ho'oponopono, I'm 100% Responsible For Everything in My Life, and so Are You for Your Life

I'm Sorry. Please forgive me.

This is Ho'oponopono. I am responsible for everything in my life. I can clear, clear, clear by saying, "I love you. I'm sorry. Please forgive me." This simple prayer has cured physical illnesses and mental illnesses. Dr. Hew Len, PhD. learned about it from Morrnah Nalamaku Simeona who healed his child from a life long skin disorder. He studied and became a master of the method and used this cleansing prayer to cure an entire hospital for the criminally insane in Hawaii. Dr. Hew Len explains that it works because once you cure/clean the error in yourself, then those around you who are expressing your error are cured. As he says, "You never saw a psychologist with healthy clients, did you?"

I have been practicing Ho'oponopono since August, 2007 when Joe Vitale's book, Zero Limits came out. I have seen it create change in the lives around me as I take more and more responsibility. The Buddhists, I believe, were the first to notice that we are all One. We are all connected to the One. To give you an example, if I am sorry for my frustrated feelings, ask that they be removed and replace them with love, the crying, screaming child in front of me calms and laughs. If I am feeling frustration at the traffic, and ask to be forgiven, and then replace those feelings with compassion for my fellow drivers and faith that Divinity will get me to wherever I'm going when I need to be there, the traffic almost always improves -- but I do always get to my appointment on time whether or not it does.

How Does this Fit with the Law of Attraction?

What we think about comes about is one of the principles of the Law of Attraction. It's a matter of putting your energy and your attention on to some wanted or unwanted result. It doesn't matter which. If you are attending enthusiastically to your business, and expect to see customers finding you, they will come. If you are worried about your business, and keep looking to see whether or not customers are coming, they will not come.

When Mother Teresa was asked to join an "Anti-War March, she refused. She asked to be invited when they had a "Peace March." This is a story told by Jack Canfield who explains that she understood the Law of Attraction. Of course she did. Look at what she did with nothing! She knew that being positive was the only way to achieve your goals.

This also works with politics:

We watched in 2004 when an unpopular war and an unpopular presidency was elected for two reasons:

What we think about comes about and those who wanted President Bush and Vice President Cheney defeated, could hardly think about anything else.
John Kerry, who was running against them, was not clear about his goals, except to overturn what President Bush and Vice President Cheney had done. He was doing just what his supporters were doing and was thinking about the other guy!

Thus, what we were all thinking about in 2004, the election of President Bush and Vice President Cheney, came about. This is also a principle of advertising. "Say whatever you want about me, but spell my name correctly."

Our reality begins with our thought. Thought moves into vision which might inspire action and vision makes us feel. Feelings change our vibration. This is the Law of Attraction. This is cause and effect.

Ho'oponopono and Cleansing Correction
In 2008, I remembered to think about what I want, rather than what I don't want. In 2000, 2004, and 2008, I didn't want Dick Cheney or torture or Gitmo or Abu Grabbe. I was so passionate about not wanting any of this, that they were re-elected in 2004. By 2008, I had remembered to focus on what I did want, and so did almost 70% of other voters. I did Ho'oponopono and took responsibility.

I focused on my vision of the United States. I chose another dream. I'm sorry. I love you. Many of us did this. We reminded ourselves of what we love about our country. I took responsibility for violence and torture. Ho'oponopono. I'm sorry. I love you. Please forgive me. Thank you.

The new dream was of a fair man who had been raised (because I was getting tired of the fear) in Hawaii, the only state in the union where they still pass a stress test as unstressed. (This is well documented in the book, The Heart's Code.) I remembered that in the United States we dream and work together and don't let our neighbors suffer.

The Acts after the Great Depression:

The Wagner Act of 1935, mandated unions when 51% of the workers voted for them,
The Social Security Act (Act of August 14, 1935) [H. R. 7260] An act to provide for the general welfare by establishing a system of Federal old-age benefits, and by enabling the several States to make more adequate provision for aged persons, blind persons, dependent and crippled children, maternal and child welfare, public health, and the administration of their unemployment compensation laws; to establish a Social Security Board; to raise revenue; and for other purposes and
Fair Labor Standards Act, 1938 - 2009 set a minimum wage and standards regarding overtime and child labor and record keeping.

I remembered that in the United States, there is not a huge difference between the rich and poor. (Prior to President Reagan in 1980, corporations voluntarily held the top salaries of their executives to no more than 25 times the salary of the lowest paid employee.) I remembered that in the United States, a poor boy who has a great dream can become a great man (President Lincoln being a notable example). I remembered that in the United States we appreciate people with different ideas (such as Steve Jobs, adopted as a child, and subsequent travel to India and study of Buddhism and Calligraphy which lead to his development of Apple Computer) because those ideas add to the creativity of our solutions. I remembered that in North America, we have honored Mother Earth (so that in the 1700's, the trees were 200 feet high at the end of Long Island, and the top soil in the Great Plains was 40 inches deep) and learned to live within her tolerances and can do so again.

My new thoughts created a new reality. I had not remembered this in 2004 when I was filled with sadness and distress. My strong feelings for the changes in the land I loved overwhelmed my support of John Kerry, and I caused George Bush and Dick Cheney to be re-elected. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. But, in 2008, I remembered in the nick of time.

Our Ideal, and Our Heartfelt Desires will Always Manifest

This is the Law of Attraction. Take 100% responsibility for this. Ho'oponopono. I love you. Thank you.

I desired a man who was intelligent, calm, kind, articulate and would have the courage to speak to foreign leaders as equals without bullying them.

Our ideas, if connected to strong feelings and strong belief, will always manifest. And, it seems, many people had the same idea. Enough was enough with the torture and disregard of Habeus Corpus. Perhaps we could elect a man who seemed to respect others.

And, like Dwight Eisenhower, President Obama is not afraid to put the corporations in their place (in his proposition to having a Public Option in the health reform bill and laws to ensure that the insurance companies keep to their contracts). Like John F. Kennedy, he has a vision of an innovative America that is not afraid to take risks in order to lead the world to a bright new future (in his support of clean energy).

Let's focus on peace, good health and abundance for all. Let's stop focusing on war. Ho'oponopono. Take 100% responsibility. When you heal the war inside you, and I heal the war inside me, we will have peace.

_______________________________________________________________

Nancy J. Stremmel is the co-owner and developer of: http://www.Mindbridge-LOA.com the compendium of information on the Law of Attraction. She is a writer, licensed Social Worker, educator, artist and therapist. She believes that everyone can make the Law of Attraction work for them.

This was a show of the practical effects of taking 100% responsibility. For more serious studies of the Law of Attraction, I have given access to core historical teachings here. http://www.mindbridge-loa.com/law-of-attraction-theory.html

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Nancy_Stremmel

Medical Bankruptcies

2009-10-22T17:20:00.002-04:00

This is great. Al Franken schools Hudson Institute Senior Fellow Diana Furchtgott-Roth about medical bankruptcies.Our bankruptcies in the US are caused about 62% of the time (according to the American Journal of Medicine) by medical costs. And, of those, nearly 78% of the people had medical insurance.

Whoo. How could that happen? I always thought that if you had medical insurance you had access to the greatest medical system in the world! Well, it happens because there is such a thing as "lifetime limit" and if the insurance company can find one mistake in your application (which could be as small as your weight or treatment for acne or asthma when you were ten years old) then they can rescind your application and cancel previous as well as current liabilities.

This was a hearing held the other day in the Senate Judiciary Committee on medical bankruptcies. If you haven't seen it, it's well worth watching.

How Bad is the Deficit?

2009-09-25T13:48:00.004-04:00

Are we simply at the precipice before it all is so much easier?

There has been a lot of worry about the deficit, and this is a problem because it adds to the National Debt. The interest on the National Debt is one of the largest items in recent Federal budgets. Just as this is a problem when it's true in a family budget, it's true at the National level. This is something we must deal with or soon it will be the only thing in the budget....

But, there have been some really frightening estimates and proclamations of the catastrophic results of current spending. We wish to allay those fears based on data analyzed by the Congressional Budget Office.

The deficit is dependent on the government's income. This is dependent on taxes. When millions of people are falling off the tax roles and onto the unemployment compensation roles, it makes the deficit bigger and bigger every day. This is not because spending is increasing every day, but because the income is decreasing. This is not the current administration's fault but because the economy exploded in 2008.

It is, however, something this administration must live with, and we have done this before. When Bush took office, the deficit was a surplus of $431 billion each of the prior 3 years before W. This was achieved because Clinton had to live with a pay-as-you-go law passed by Congress. In the past, administrations assumed that this was the way to run a government, but that had been forgotten in the 1980's. This Congress has remembered, in part, because things got so our of control in the last 8 years after the law had lapsed.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, Bush's deficit in 2008 was $459 billion. Now, since this is a budget deficit, and the wars were never in the budget, doesn't that mean that his deficit was even greater?

From the AP

"The deficit will hit $482 billion in the 2009 budget year that will be inherited by Democrat Barack Obama or Republican John McCain, the White House estimated Monday. That figure is sure to rise after adding the tens of billions of dollars in additional Iraq war funding it doesn't include, and the total could be higher yet if the economy ..."

Obama put the wars in the budget. And, when that was written by the AP, they didn't know that the economy would take such a serious and debilitating dive. However, in spite of all this, there is hope in our future.

From the CBO

"CBO estimates that, as the economy recovers, if current
laws and policies remained in place, the deficit would
shrink but remain above $500 billion per year, or more
than 3 percent of GDP....As the economy improves and spending related to the financial rescue and the economic stimulus package tails off, the deficit is projected to gradually diminish; by 2013, it would amount to 3.2 percent of GDP (about the same level as in 2008), under the assumption that various tax provisions expire as scheduled and that discretionary spending rises at the rate of inflation. Between 2013 and 2019, deficits are projected to range from 3.1 percent to 3.4 percent of GDP, well above the 2.4 percent of GDP that they have averaged over the past 40 years."

CBO Summary of Budget 2009, page 6.

According to CBO estimates above, in 4 years, the deficit is going to be at about the same as it was in 2008, 3% of the GDP. Isn't that what even Republicans said was good?

I don't think that is good enough, and neither does Obama, which is why this Democratic Congress passed the pay-as-you-go bill in April. As the economy recovers, this will put us in a position to begin to pay down the National Debt.

We can keep the pressure on our representatives. There is no reason that the Public Option, if a buy in to Medicare, can't support the costs of the seniors even better than private for-profit insurance supports those members who are using their health benefits with those who don't need to use theirs but are continuing to pay premiums.

This could be a win-win!

The National Debt and TARP - Your Money?

2009-09-21T15:02:00.007-04:00

Back to serious matters. There have been so many questions about the banks and the bailout money and the Federal Deficit -- your money?

First, since there is such attack on Obama and Democrats right now, I'd like to talk about the national debt in graphic form. If you look right now at the graph of the National Debt from 1940 to the present, you'll see a modest increase during WWII, and then it's almost flat until the Viet Nam War. From 1975 to 1980, it begins to go up. This is the period of Gerald Ford to Jimmy Carter. Gerald Ford came into office during double digit inflation (topping 12% in 1974), high oil prices, and low confidence in government as a result of post Viet Nam, and post Watergate and Richard Nixon's resignation. By March of 1980, inflation and interest rates were topping 18%. Even so, the debt went up moderately, and if you look at the other chart comparing it to GDP, the debt continued a down trend through Carter's presidency.

Then, came Reaganomics, and top-down Supply Side Economics, and huge tax cuts for the rich. Look at the two big rises in National Debt as compared against GDP. Both rises were during the big tax cuts of Reagan and both Bush's. Clinton took back some of the giveaway and reduced the budget still constrained by pay-as-you-go, and the National Debt was greatly curbed. Compared against GDP, it was reduced.

At the beginning of Reagan's term, the National Debt was about $1 trillion. By the time a Democrat was back in the White House, it had climbed to over $3 trillion. Clinton kept it below $6 trillion, tapering off significantly during his last 4 years. Bush lowered taxes again, raising the National Debt to $10.6 trillion by the time he left office.

Now, let's look at the National Debt as compared to GDP, and you'll see that the differences are even more pronounced. National Debt goes down during Democratic control, and up during Reaganomics and the Bush eras.

Finally, the graph from Emmanuel Saez (below) showing the income share of the top .01% of earners, that Paul Krugman published in August of this year. As Thom Hartman keeps saying, tax breaks for the rich result in bubbles which inevitably pop. The dot-com bubble caused by the excitment of a new industry increased incomes across the board, but also created some tremendously wealthy entrepreneurs. The stock market decrease approaching 2000, the end of Clinton's term, lowered the top income from 5% to 3% of total income share and lower than it was in 1986 when Reagan lowered the income tax for the top incomes from 50% to 28% and raised the lower level taxes from 11% to 15%.

George Bush came into office and again lowered taxes every chance he got until we have another serious recession, bordering on depression, and the highest spread of income ever -- at 6%. The peak in 1928-29 resulted in the Great Depression. A peak in 1986 was followed in 1987 by Black Monday and a stock market crash. Again, as Thom Hartmann points out, tax reductions for the rich results in a bubble that pops. This was repeated in 2000 when the stock market crashed again after the .com bubble.

And, this has come to that: The Bank Bailout

There's a list of recipient banks here: at CNN
which shows that about $200 billion was borrowed and about $70 billion has been paid back so far.

Now, where did the money come from in the first place? It was called the Capital Purchase Program and the effort was to prop up capital and make available additional money for lending. It didn't come from the taxpayer. It was part of TARP.

The TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) allowed the US Treasury Department to buy preferred (non-voting) shares of hundreds of banks. The US taxpayer was told that there would be a modest return including a 5% quarterly dividend. To date, we've seen better than expected profits of 15% or a total of $334 million in profit from the large banks who have repaid their debts and an additional $35 million from 14 smaller banks.

However, to stay realistic, Citigroup and Bank of America are still troubled, and neither is going to repay their bailout money soon. Their stocks have surged this summer, but they are both still sitting on mortgages that don't look good.

Will the Paybacks happen soon enough?

The US Treasury is subject to a Congressional debt limit. In February it was raised to $12.1 trillion. It currently stands at $11.7 trillion and was scheduled to hit the limit in mid-October. There are steps it can take short term to free up cash but none of them are long term solutions. Some of them are an avoidance of investing in Federal employees pension or G fund, or in the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund. Payments to this fund are normally $5.63 billion every month.

The Fed has been one of the biggest buyers of US Treasury's and government backed mortgage debt. What does this mean? The regional banks comprising the Federal Reserve System have agreed to buy the debt of their weaker brothers. In the second quarter, the Fed bought $164 billion of the $339 billion in new Treasurys. The Fed has been buying upward of 80% of the bonds issued by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. This has propped up the Real Estate market, but in October the Fed is scheduled to stop buying those bonds.

Luckily, US Households have been buying US Treasurys at an unusual rate. Is this because they are unsure about their local banks? This week, the government is auctioning a record $112 billion in debt. If the US citizen continues to buy our national debt, we can at least keep our debt out of foreign hands.

US Debt of George Bush: From $5.6 trillion to $10.6 trillion 1/20/09.

US Debt during year 2009: From $10.6 trillion to $11.8 trillion.

Obama has returned to pay-as-you-go which created the dip in National Debt that we saw during the Clinton years. Please support this practice as it seems to be the only way to constrain the lawmakers. Additionally, the top tax rates are now below what they were during the 1950's and the Eisenhower presidency. This is not helpful. A return even to the Reagan tax rates would greatly reduce the National Debt.

There is a myth being perpetrated that Republicans handle the Nation's money better. Not so. It would seem that they handle their money and our money better while the Nation goes deeper into debt!

People of Walmart

2009-09-03T12:05:00.007-04:00

It's a holiday weekend, so we're going to set you up with the funniest web sites. Be the first, or 100,000th on your block depending on where you live, to visit these sites. The first is People of Walmart.

People of Walmart is not easy to get in to, but it is well worth the try. This is one of the hottest, and newest sites (with an Alexa rating of 59,037 in it's first month.) Three friends set it up, Andrew, his brother Adam and their friend Luke. In their own words:

“People of Walmart was founded in August of 2009 by three friends and roommates after an international trip to Walmart. Let’s face it; we all have seen the people who obviously don’t have mirrors and/or family and friends to lock them in a basement, and they all seem to congregate at Walmart. It’s not everywhere that you can shop for milk at 10 a.m. next to a 400lb mother of 6 wearing a pink tube top, leopard tights, and hooker heels.”

You can find the site here: http://peopleofwalmart.com

Race Day: Get there early to get a good seat!

Photos are up by date, and you are allowed to browse the previous day for the best in hairdo's, outfits, cars and pets! It's a "don't miss" from Mindbridge Trends!

They are asking for photos, so grab your camera on your next trip to Walmart if you haven't got anything better to do! Oh, one thing, there is a disclaimer:

"We would also like to stress that we are in no way liable if you get your ass beat by Bubba when he catches you taking his picture. Be discrete, have fun, and Enjoy!"

Once a Flower Child, Always A Flower Child....

Ha. Good heads up. Maybe you should avoid weekends....

Senator Edward Kennedy Remembered

2009-08-26T16:47:00.004-04:00

Senator Kennedy always made me cry from pride and hope. Perhaps because he was a lion, and courage makes me cry.

Joe Hill, labor activist convicted of murder, on the day before his execution made a suggestion to his supporters: "Don't Mourn, organize!"

This would be an appropriate way to remember Ted Kennedy. Senator Edward Kennedy did this after burying his 3 brothers who all died serving this country. In his honor, we will do this to help to get the first American health care reform bill passed with a public option.

We can't talk about someone who lived so much of his life in the US Senate without a good by from an old friend, Vice President Joe Biden. In the following video he explains that with Ted as a colleague, idealism was infectious and most recently, they had more hope and faith than they did when they were young.

At this time, when most lawmakers are beholden to fundraisers and their funders, Senator Edward Kennedy was fortunate to come from family wealth. This enabled him to stand tall, and sometimes to stand alone or almost so as when he voted against funds for the war in Iraq. Senator Kennedy never forgot that he was a liberal and that his party was the party of working families rather than the home of lobbyists.

The millions of dollars spent by insurers,and hospitals have already defeated any chance for single payer, but perhaps Senator Kennedy's memory will help to empower the supporters of the public option.

This is a nice 8:22 minute video of Teddy sailing with his family, and about him as spoken by many of his friends from the Senate.

Now, what can an individual do in these last few days before the lawmakers come back?

Learn about the law from the Whitehouse: http://bit.ly/bYAu5
Sign the petition by Schumer/Leahy/Durbin http://www.citizensforapublicoption.com/ This is at 96,571 and it would be far more effective if we pushed it over 1 million. -- Send it to everyone you know! Let's see how fast we can build these numbers.
Call or write to your Congressional Representatives, and your Senators, several times is fine. They are being bombarded, I promise you, by the right wingers who have been fed a stinking sack of poop that they believe is truth. We have to let them know that we are out here, and we are reasonable, and we are watching. https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml Put in your information, and the name of your rep will come up with telephone numbers. Click on the name, and you will get a form for writing an email. http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm This is the Senate site, and you can contact your Senators from here.
Repeat as often as possible....

Glenn Beck's Advertisers Head for the Hills!

2009-08-25T14:11:00.002-04:00

There are companies in America which are pulling back their advertising support of right wing hate speech.

They deserve our business. This is wonderful news.

How did it happen? Color of Change.org members have successfully mobilized in one of the fastest and most effective campaigns I have ever seen. Thousands of phone calls were placed and thousands of letters were sent to company executives.

According to Mediamatters.org, and an August 24th, Color of Change press release:

"By the end of the week, three of these companies - Clorox, Lowe's and Sprint - had pledged not to run additional ads; Red Lobster and Vonage have not yet responded.

The new companies distancing themselves from Beck include Airware Inc. (makers of Brez anti-snoring aids), Ancestry.com, AT&T, Blaine Labs Inc., Campbell Soup Company, Clorox, Ditech, The Elations Company, Experian (creator of FreeCreditReport.com), Farmers Insurance Group, Johnson & Johnson (makers of Tylenol), Lowe's, NutriSystem, Sprint, The UPS Store and Verizon Wireless. They join twenty other companies who previously pledged not to run additional ads on Glenn Beck. The moves come after the Fox News Channel host called President Obama a "racist" who "has a deep-seated hatred for white people" during an appearance on Fox & Friends."

The first companies to respect the request to correct their advertising include: Allergan (maker of Restasis), Ally Bank (a unit of GMAC Financial Services), Best Buy, Broadview Security, ConAgra, CVS, GEICO, Lawyers.com, Men’s Wearhouse, Procter & Gamble, Progressive Insurance, RadioShack, Re-Bath, Roche, SC Johnson, Sanofi-Aventis, Sargento, State Farm Insurance, Travelocity and Wal-Mart.

When you visit these companies, let them know that you appreciate their removal of support from Glenn Beck and Fox Network.

You can join and support the campaign to stop sponsorship of Glenn Beck.

Thank you.

Jon Stewart Explains the Health Care Reform Bill

2009-08-24T19:26:00.003-04:00

The Health Care Debate?

This explains it all….

From August 17th…..

Part 1

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Exclusive - Betsy McCaughey Extended Interview Pt. 1

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Healthcare Protests

Part 2 August 20th

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Exclusive - Betsy McCaughey Extended Interview Pt. 2

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Healthcare Protests

She insists that patients are under treated 46% of the time, and only over treated 11% of the time. How can she make that statement, and then suggest that we don’t need this bill?

She could not find anything wrong with paying for a consultation that would cover all end of life choices including the “creation and adherence to orders for life sustaining treatment”. She tried to insist that doctors would get paid less if the patients or their families changed their plans at the last minute, and Jon agreed that would be wrong but that this was not in any way what the bill says.

Jon pointed out that the health insurance companies have already rationed care, and she tried to say that there would be too little money in Medicaid for seniors….. What? Seniors get Medicare, not Medicaid.

She was suggesting a plan that would offer a debit card to uninsured Americans, $1000 to $2000 per year for health insurance. Jon pointed out that the average health care plan costs $5000. Her comment was that he was good at math….

The Return of Feudalism in America

2009-08-19T16:24:00.009-04:00

The attack on this public option is a serious and focused attack on the Middle Class in America.

Thom Hartmann reminds us that the rise of a middle class is not natural in a "free and unfettered" economy. It has happened accidentally, only a couple of other times in the history of the world.

It happened after the plague, the black death because there was a sudden change in population and resources were then freed. The increasing demand for labor drove up the price of labor. Many historians, Thom reminds us, credit this emergence of a middle class with the Renaissance.
400 years later, when the wealth of America was "discovered" by Europeans, the increasing wealth balanced by a stable population produced a second middle class. This emerging middle class brought about the Enlightenment and the American Revolution.

As the population in America increased, pushing back the Native Americans into small "reservations", the middle class again decreased. At the time of the Republican Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt tackled the question for the first time, "How to create a middle class without killing off a third of the population, or discovering gold in a distant land?"

Previously, capitalism had been uncontrolled. He developed the controls that "saved American capitalism from itself."

The Wagner Act of 1935, mandated unions when 51% of the workers voted for them.

The Social Security Act (Act of August 14, 1935) [H. R. 7260]

An act to provide for the general welfare by establishing a system of Federal old-age benefits, and by enabling the several States to make more adequate provision for aged persons, blind persons, dependent and crippled children, maternal and child welfare, public health, and the administration of their unemployment compensation laws; to establish a Social Security Board; to raise revenue; and for other purposes.

Fair Labor Standards Act, 1938 - 2009 set a minimum wage and standards regarding overtime and child labor and record keeping.

He also instituted government employment through the WPA, CCC, etc. and invested money in roads, bridges, dams, hospitals and schools. These improvements on infrastructure are investments, and not simply expenses as are bombs and other munitions that disappear when used.

The Weimar-style Hyperinflaton, or The 2nd Great Depression:

Ronald Reagan came into office and set about undoing FDR's New Deal, and we have heard more about this from the right wing pundits. Rush Limbaugh never tires of saying, "Roosevelt is dead!"

Ronald Reagan began to lower income taxes, and he lowered the cost of government as well, but this practice was not followed by either of the Bush's. They continued to lower taxes while increasing costs. Borrowing from Saudi Arabia and China, rather than taxing Americans kept the costs of the wars against Iraq and Afghanistan hidden from the concerns of the American taxpayer.

If we look at this chart we can see that the height of the minimum wage in America was in 1968. Since then, we have had an almost steady decline in real wages due to inflation, and a lack of Congressional support for minimum wage increases. There was a recent increase in 2006 after the longest stagnant period since the first minimum wage.

The government is supposed to provide a stable currency to make markets possible. As the Weimar Government failed to do this, so the recent conservatives have failed. The court system should enforce the contracts that make markets possible. Yet, health insurance companies are allowed to rescind customers who develop any ongoing condition, without access to the courts. Congress was appalled during their testimony, but they refused to change their policies.

An educated workforce, through public education, should be able to travel to work on public roads, or over public bridges or through tunnels or on public railroads or buses. These costs have gone up, and the maintenance has gone down. There has not been a major improvement in the public transit system since, well, the 1950's.

If you Google "bridge collapse", there is the Tacoma collapse in 2006, the Indiana collapse in 2009, and the Minneapolis collapse in August 2007. That year, in April, Bob Herbert wrote for The New York Times that

President Truman had signed the Marshall Plan which rebuilt Europe. He pointed out at that time that a half century later, the US couldn't even rebuild New Orleans. He added that the American Society of Civil Engineers claimed that the US infrastructure was in such bad shape that it would take more than $1.5 trillion over a five year period to bring it back to reasonably adequate condition.

Obama's entire stimulus package was only $787 billion, and still the complaints are unrelenting.

New York City raised its own alarm in the 1970's when the West Side Highway, a raised highway in Manhattan collapsed. Afterwards, studies for the city showed that the entire highway system, the bridges, the drinking water system, and the subway system were all seriously and dangerously deteriorated. In the 1980's, iron workers attending to the Manhattan Bridge were given hazardous duty pay because the iron was so rusted in many areas that they could put a finger through the structural iron.

This has been an ongoing project in New York City, with the city absorbing most of the costs. Mr. Felix Rohatyn explains that

"Since the beginning of the republic," he said, "transportation, infrastructure and education have played a central role in advancing the American economy....Politics and ideology are the main reasons that government has turned away from public investment over the past several years. Zealots marching under the banner of small government have been remarkably effective in thwarting efforts to raise taxes or borrow substantial sums for the kind of public investment that has always been essential to a dynamic economy."

Meanwhile, Herbert points out, China and India are racing to develop the infrastructure and education optimal for competition in the contemporary world. Felix Rohatyn explains:

"It has been shown that the productivity of an economy is related to the quality of its infrastructure. For example, if you don't have enough schools to teach your kids, or your kids are taught in schools that have holes in the ceilings, that are dilapidated, they're not going to be as educated and as competitive in a world economy as they need to be."

The economic conservatives for 26 years have managed to undermine the middle class and to empower the wealthy elite while transferring from investment in infrastructure to expensing for war. Even the little bit that Obama scheduled for the infrastructure in his stimulus bill was attacked.

This is not new. Thomas Jefferson first warned of free market corporatists:

"Those seeking profits,were they given total freedom, would not be the ones to trust to keep government pure and our rights secure. Indeed, it has always been those seeking wealth who were the source of corruption in government....I am not among those who fear the people. They, and not the rich, are our dependence for continued freedom. ... We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude."

And, this is why the attacks on Obama and the "health care reform" are so poisonous.

Changing the Tax Structure:

Progressive taxation, was another part of FDR's stimulus plan -- giving workers more to spend and thus stimulating demand for goods and services. In this case, restoring the tax on the upper class in order to insure payment for the public option part of the health care reform, would give more to the middle class to spend.

It is not uncommon for a small business/entrepreneur to pay as much as $26,000/person/year for health insurance. This is the down payment on a house! What other uses would the middle class put this money to if not on health insurance?

As Jefferson said in a 1785 letter to James Madison, "Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise."

Thom Hartmann adds,

As Jefferson realized, and FDR proved, with no government "interference" by setting the rules of the game of business and fair taxation, there will be no middle class.

And as history around the world proves, when the middle class vanishes, democracy often goes with it.

Thom explains in another article : "The policies of "free and open markets" will naturally produce a small and powerful wealthy class, a small "middle" merchant class, and a huge and terrified worker class, traditionally called "serfs". A free market will create a "Dickens-era" state where the working poor are kept in constant fear and anxiety.

Aren't we approaching this today? In this time of recession, as the unemployment figures continue to climb, those yelling at the Town Hall meetings are afraid and angry. They just don't know why. They are not seeing that their real wages have been shrinking since 1968, but they are feeling the pressure.

Who is the REAL ENEMY?

They don't realize that the middle class is under attack when government began to renege on its function to set the rules of business:

in such a way that working people must receive a living wage, labor has the power to organize into unions just as capital can organize into corporations, and domestic industries are protected from overseas competition

Jefferson realized that a strong central Congress would be needed to help to regulate the commerce of the States. Meanwhile, conservatives then, as now, believed in the trickle down theory and that government was the problem not the solution.

Still, they can't explain why the series of tax cuts by the Hoover administration, preceded the Great Depression, and then raising taxes to provide for government intervention, and the protection of labor rights through the 1930's, 1940's and 1950's, led to a golden age for the American Middle Class.

In the 1930's the top tax rate was 25%, and before Reagan began to dismantle it, it held at 70% for decades. As the top tax rate fell, it caused bubbles (in the stock market and housing) and the middle class fell in proportion. It seems that tax cuts to the upper 10% harm our economy, while tax cuts to the bottom 25%, as Jefferson predicted, are good for the economy.

Between Lincoln's death, and the Great Depression, conservative economics and the Gilded Age brought about a return of feudalism, a disparity between those with great wealth and the growth of the working poor. It took 2 generations before Franklin Roosevelt returned to Lincoln's policy of protecting the rights of labor and the founders' tariffs to protect domestic industries and workers.

We must learn the lessons of the past. To do this, I think we have to listen to each other and stop listening to the corporate megaphone. We had a saying in the 1960's -- "Don't trust anyone over 30 years old." Today, I think we can change it a bit to "Don't trust anyone making over $1 million." These guys are not in the Middle Class, and it's not the Middle Class who are paying them. In other words, they do not share our interests or concerns!

Rush Limbaugh -- $400 million (More than Katie Couric, Brian Williams, Charlie Gibson and Diane Sawyer, combined!)
Glenn Beck -- $50 million over 5 years.
Howard Stern -- $500 million
Sean Hannity -- $100 million
Bill O'Reilly -- $9 million

We have a congress and a President who have taken on the $6 Trillion health insurance industry and are doing their best to give the American worker the health care we need at an affordable price. This is not a pretty fight.

Our government needs our help if they will be able to protect our interests.

Who is Responsible for the Deficit?

2009-08-13T17:33:00.001-04:00

The GM Chevy Volt

2009-08-11T12:20:00.002-04:00

The Chevy Volt is not GM's first electric car. Expected to get 230 miles per gallon in city driving, the Volt is part of a new lineup. It is expected to launch late in 2010.

Although this might seem radical, GM had an electric car many years ago which was quickly taken off the market.

The gasoline will only cost 60 cents per gallon. Beyond 40 miles, a gasoline engine works to charge the battery. Recharging takes 8 hours on a normal outlet, but only 3 hours if 240 volt outlet is available.

Either way, until there are chargers available in parking garages, park at work and run an extension cord out your window to recharge your vehicle! GM plans to charge $40,000 which is 33% more than the original Prius, but as that price came down, so GM expects that mass sales will allow them to lower the price.

At home, can you imagine solar chargers on your garage connected to storage cells that will fully charge your car over night? Then, what would your commute cost you?

Will there be a market for all electric vehicles? Would you buy one?

"Not-For-Profit" Health Care Plan is not Socialism

2009-08-05T13:26:00.007-04:00

The proposed not-for-profit American health care insurance plan has been suggested as an optional plan:

1. for those who don't have health insurance,
2. for those who have been expelled from for-profit plans,
3. for those who would rather change over from more expensive plans.

There have been suggestions/proposals that would make this not-for-profit health care insurance plan a ZERO tax burden on 99% of all Americans:

* Decrease the tax deduction for the most expensive homes
* Raise the taxes of the upper 1% back to that of the Reagan years
* Charge a fair premium from those who can afford it

Any two of the above would more than cover those Americans who don't now have health insurance.

None of those suggestions would be adding any tax burden on us or our children, but would reduce the tax burden on our children because:

1. it would eliminate the 60% of bankruptcies that are now caused by medical emergencies.
2. And, it would reduce the numbers of those who go on Medicaid/Welfare because they don't have medical insurance.
3. And, it would improve the health of Americans who would be covered for preventive costs.
4. All of the above would reduce the current national health care costs.
5. It would improve the profit margin of American companies who otherwise cannot control the cost of doing business, which would increase American tax income and help to reduce the National Debt

Any small businessman will tell you that the cost of for-profit health care insurance rises every year about 30%. It is not because their costs of doing business are going up. It is not because medical costs are going up. It is because the CEO enjoys having his salary and benefits and staff bonus' go up.

For the small business, any cost of doing business that rises 30% every year is unsustainable. Their income is unlikely to rise 30% every year, and if it were, why would they want this to go the the insurance company rather than to their staff who is responsible for making it happen?

In any other industry, there are laws against "price-fixing", but not in health care insurance. This insurance has a special relationship in the laws against monopoly because Blue Cross-Blue Shield once provided a service to Americans by providing low cost hospitalization insurance.

The small businessman cannot change providers to solve this great increase in the health care premiums charged each year:

1. Because then any staff member who has gone to the doctor would be un-insured because of the "prior condition" clause of all for-profit health insurance companies.
2. Because there is no real competitive price difference since the for-profit health insurance companies are allowed to engage in price fixing. One insurance might offer a lower "come-on-in" price, and then just raise it every year until they have the same price as the one the business just left.

A human would support this bill:

* If s/he believe in competition, because the current health care insurance system does not have any competition.
* If s/he believe that a business should honor its contracts, because currently, insurance companies do not honor their contracts.
* If s/he believe that a small business should be able to provide their employees with the same benefits as do large companies.
* If s/he believe that someone who is willing and able to pay for health insurance should be able to buy reasonably priced insurance for his family.

If you believe in any of the previous benefits, you can support the 3 honest Senators who are standing alone against the $$$$ of the Health Care Insurance Industry. They are simply looking for a show of hands, not $$.

If we don't support them, we are giving our vote to the lobbyists paid for by the current health insurance industry. Why would you trust them with your children's future? This is the moment in time when they can be curtailed. Not stopped, but curtailed.

I am not in favor of socialism, but neither am I in favor of handing my vote to those who have already proved that they are only interested in unrestrained greed.

This is the forum for smart people.... Vote from clarity, not from fear.

3 Senators Support Public Option

2009-07-29T17:30:00.005-04:00

DON"T BE LEFT OUT!

Three Senators are standing tall in support of a public option. Senator Chuck Schumer has been outspoken, clear and unequivocal on national TV. Senator Patrick Leahy and Senator Dick Durbin have recently joined him.

This week as other Senators and Blue Dogs seem to be retreating from the onslaught of the Insurance Lobby, these three are showing courage and commitment. Let's support them. They have created a website where our support can be counted. You just have to "sign in" with your email, first and lastname. Simple.

The numbers have grown by about 10,000 since yesterday. Let's show the Blue Dog cowards and any other quivering politicians that the American PEOPLE want a public option. We should let them know that they ignore us in favor of the Insurance INDUSTRY at great risk.

The Insurance Lobby is pouring $1.4 million into DC every day. These Senators who are standing for us, will need a lot of evidence to sway their peers. Please give it to them. Send off the address to your friends and family. http://www.citizensforapublicoption.com/

Now, for those who are curious about what a public option is, I'll explain as succinctly as I can. However, just as the President is very vague and general, so are we all since we don't have a bill to speak about yet.

Right now, the US is the only industrialized country that doesn't offer health care to all citizens. We have doctors and hospitals and everything you might need if you have:
a) Money
b) Health insurance
c) Medicare
d) Medicaid

If you don't have one of the above, you are among millions of Americans who just don't go to the doctor and try their best to avoid needing a hospital. This ends up being costly, because if you should end up in a hospital, and are seen, someone will have to pay. Everyone now agrees that this is more expensive than it is to offer preventive or early intervention care before your health is seriously compromised.

The question is how to do it. In Canada, they have single payer care for everyone. The government pays the doctors and the hospitals and the testing sites, etc.. None of those providers have to ask about insurance, and they all bill one source, the government.

President Obama has made it clear that since 16% of our economy is now tied up with private insurance, he is not going to put them out of business. This is a lot of jobs and some healthy taxes from the only industry that is posting record profits during this economy.... oh, and the recently resuscitated financial industry.

So, he is hoping that the Senate and House can splice together a combination of private insurance and public insurance as a health life line that will insure that everyone is covered. This needs to include some stipulations or regulations for the private insurers who have been getting rid of any of their clients who begin to cost them money. There will be new rules that will require any private company who has taken money to insure you, to actually do so. These are a very good start and we support them.

Yet, preventing the abuses of the private insurance companies only helps those who have insurance. We still have millions of Americans, and small companies who can't afford health coverage. Small companies are charged more than large companies, so independent business people are often out of luck. Other Americans: freelancers, artists, writers, florists, nannies, shoe repair people, dog walkers, house sitters, elder care semi-professionals, substitute teachers, lawn mower repair and sharpeners, handymen, small contractors and part time workers across the country are uninsured. These are people who make our lives more beautiful, or more possible as they take care of those we leave at home when we go to work.

The public option would be a low cost medical insurance plan that would cover these folks. If they can't pay at all, it would be at almost no cost. But, if they can pay a reasonable premium, they would contribute.

There were many suggestions on how to pay for those who can't pay anything that I believe we've covered in previous articles. President Obama suggested a cap on the deduction for the most expensive houses. Why he asked, should a middle class businessman get a $5000 deduction and a wealthy corporate officer get a $70,000 deduction? Either the wealthy man doesn't need to buy a house that expensive, or, he can afford to pay more of his own mortgage. Another suggestion was to reverse the Bush tax deductions for the top 1%. They would still pay less taxes than they were at the end of the Reagan term. This would allow us to provide health insurance for all Americans.

The one thing the President has promised is that this will not be paid for by taxing the middle class!

The other promise of the President, is that anyone who has insurance that they are happy with will be able to keep their plan and their doctor(s).

So, please, there is no reason not to do this. There is no reason not to do this. There is every humane reason to do this. And, it makes financial sense since doctors, hospitals and other providers are burdened with tedious intakes and tedious phone calls to make sure that each sick person can somehow pay for care. If everyone is covered, there's no problem!

Beliefs versus Reality

2009-07-25T16:24:00.000-04:00

What is going on during this health care debate? Misinformation and fear mongering, that's what.

$1.5 million is pouring into Washington DC every day to change the shape of reality.

This is frightening, because in another article we have discussed how your genetics are shaped by your beliefs. If we are led to believe that we will be less healthy or less wealthy by adopting a public option, it will be so.

So, let us look at this for a minute:

For example, if you are worried, it doesn't matter that you live in a safe neighborhood and have a good job and a wonderful partner. The facts seldom affect your feelings. It is your beliefs that affect your feelings. When the American President Bush, and his cabinet began to go on TV and talk about the "smoking gun that would be a mushroom cloud" it did not matter that Sadaam Hussein was no threat. It mattered only that "these important people who know more than I know seem frightened". These beliefs that "they know more than I know" and that "they seem frightened" formed a perception in millions of Americans that "the world is suddenly dangerous."

Another example from more recent TV. The Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats who are receiving large money contributions from the Health Insurance Industry are spreading lies about the "wonderful private health system" in the United States. That we are about 31st out of 37 industrial nations for longevity, and infant mortality statistics does not affect
the beliefs of those who are listening to their lies on the TV and radio every day. They say we're the best, and this is believed because Americans love to hear that we are the best. That almost every doctor I know complains about dealing with the private insurance industry does not affect their beliefs. Doctors expect to have their requests questioned by the insurance companies. This does not happen in other countries where there is a single payer system. There the doctor is paid for his work and his tests without a question. It is only here that the doctor must make several phone calls to get any requested procedure approved. Yet, when the TV talking heads say over and over and over, "Don't let the government come between your doctor and you!" it is believed.

Additionally, I don't know anyone who doesn't have at least one story of someone who lost their health insurance when someone in their family got sick. The health insurance industry is pouring $1.5 million into Washington DC every day. This is to buy their talking heads and to delay
change until everyone is bored of hearing about it and momentum is lost. So, in spite of the fact that millions of Americans die every day because they lost their health insurance, there is the myth promoted that if the government enters into the health insurance arena, things will be worse.

We pay per person more than double the amount for health care and insurance that is paid in any other country. All other systems are less expensive, yet, somehow we are being fed the belief that if the government enters into the health insurance arena, without any need for profit, that things will get even more expensive. This makes no sense at all. Insurance company execs earn from $10 million to $124 million dollars each year, or $39,846.74 for a lunch hour. No government employee is going to earn anywhere near that amount. United Health Care just posted record profits, in spite of the recession, and in spite of paying that obscene salary to their CEO.

A government program does not have to make a profit. The government will pay your doctor directly without question as it has for Medicare patients since the '80s, yet, the insurance company is spending a lot of money to convince us that a government option is going to cost us more than we're paying now and reduce the quality of care....

So, the facts: Those on Medicare in our country are happy with their health care. They do not complain about the government coming between them and their doctor. The doctors do not complain about the government refusing payment or refusing a procedure. So, let's assume that the government option will be totally satisfactory.

Don't let them frighten you. We should be frightened of the status quo!

BlackBerry Curve 8900 for 1 Cent

2009-07-21T17:42:00.006-04:00

OK Racefans, I said that I would bring to you the best deals and the most interesting products. Well, I think the BlackBerry Curve 8900 phone being offered by Amazon for 1 cent is a great bargain!!!!

And, did I mention free 2 day shipping? It's not available in all zip codes, so I wish you luck, but if it is available in yours, Whhoo Hooo!

The catch is that you have to buy a T-Mobile plan. Now, if you travel to Europe, T-Mobile is the best plan anyway, or so I understand. I never actually had T-Mobile, but I've known people....

And, when you're in a T-Mobile "hot spot" web on the phone switches over so that your email doesn't cost you anything. What a bargain, right?

The T-Mobile plans range from $39.95 to $149.99 for the unlimited Family unlimited Nationwide plan. If you're interested, here's the link: http://bit.ly/pDQ0f

That's all folks!

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Warning! Warning: Toxic Dolphins and Toxic Living

2009-07-11T16:21:00.008-04:00

This is an announcement. Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (flame retardants) are causing troubles. We are not anti-corporation, but we are pro-dolphin and pro-child. Jake Richardson in Planetsave.com has posted that scientists have found unusually large levels of flame retardant in dolphin blubber. The closer the dolphins are to downtown Miami, the more the chemical was concentrated.

These chemicals are applied to furniture, clothes and electronics and they slow the ignition of items in a burning room. No doubt they have saved lives, however, in the dolphin they cause the death of dolphin fetus'. According to Richardson, “The U.S. has historically led the world production of these man-made chemicals and was responsible for about 50% of the total global demand in 2001.”

These polybrominated diphenyl ethers are also found in humans and the longterm effects are unknown. I can't imagine it will be good. Anyone who has eaten seafood has ingested them. Some believe that it could interfere with our immune response and others believe that it will affect infant brain development. It is a known neurotoxin.

To make matters worse, it would not even be good enough to give up all seafood forever, because Deca, one of the polybrominated diphenyl ethers, has been found in apples. Now, I have been telling all the parents I work with, that Granny Smith, or green apples, don't tend to develop the scale that red apples do, and so have less fungicide on the apple even when they are not labled "organic." But now, we have to worry about polybrominated diphenyl ethers, or specifically Deca.

Amy Rosenthal reports in Enviroblog that the plastic pallets on which apples and peaches (especially) are stored and "hydrocooled" to keep them fresh, leach out the polybrominated diphenyl ethers onto the fruit.

She reports that these polybrominated diphenyl ethers have been associated with disruptions in brain development and hormone systems.

We have an epidemic of autism in this country. Can we afford to risk any more suspect chemicals in the environment of mothers and young children that will adversely affect brain development? Some flame retardants have already been banned. Can't we ban the rest to save our dolphins and children? At least let's keep them out of sea runoff areas, and away from any food.

______________________________________________________

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Happiness in Nations

2009-07-11T14:27:00.011-04:00

This is not a trendy topic, and I said that I would do trendy topics on this blog, but I also said that I would give you interesting subjects.... Happiness is an interesting subject, especially if you don't have it.

Our quality of life is dependent on our happiness. If we have money, or a great partner or a successful business, or if we are making a good living doing exactly what we want, our quality of life is still equal to our ability to take in and give out happiness.

If we are depressed or dissatisfied generally, it does not matter how much money we have. This is confirmed by the test that produced the World Database of Happiness . The wealthiest countries are not the happiest countries!

By definition:

Measures of happiness

Happiness is defined as the degree to which an individual judges the overall quality of his life-as-a-whole favorably. Within this concept two 'components' of happiness are distinguished: hedonic level of affect (the degree to which pleasant affect dominates) and contentment (perceived realization of wants).

This might seem obvious to you, but the United States and United Kingdom did not come out on top for their happiness. The question asked was: "Suppose the top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you and the bottom of the ladder the worst possible life. Where on this ladder do you feel you personally stand at the present time?". The response was rated on a ladder scale ranging from 0 to 10. This included data gathered from the year 2000 to 2006.

Some of the highest averages observed ranged from 7 to 9. The middle range was around 6. The bottom range was close to 3 and 4.

Rank is the number (range in the case of tie) following the name of the country.

8,5 Iceland 1
8,4 Denmark 2
8,3 Puerto Rico (not included in ranked countries)
8,1 Columbia 3-4
8,1 Switzerland 3-4
8,0 Mexico 5
7,9 Austria 6
7,8 Finland 7
7,7 Australia 8-11
7,7 Luxembourgh 8-11
7,7 Norway 8-11
7,7 Sweden
7,6 Canada 12
7,5 Netherlands
7,5 Argentina 13-15
7,7 Northern Ireland (not included in ranked countries)
7,5 Ireland 13-15
7,3 Costa Rica 16-17
7,3 Cyprus
7,3 New Zealand
7,2 Venezuela
7,2 Germany 21-24
7,1 United Arab Emirates
7,1 United Kingdom 25-26
7,0 Guatemala 27-31
7,0 Malta 27-31
7,0 Saudi Arabia 27-31
7,0 Trinidad-Tobago 27-31
7,0 United States 27-31
6,7 Kuwait 38-39
6,7 Israel 38-39
6,4 Japan 48-53
6,3 China 54-55

From the list, it might be obvious that those countries at the top will have the best energy for manifesting more joy, success and satisfaction. Most business coaches and trainers say that your life will be the average of the 5 people closest to you.

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Google Chrome

2009-07-08T14:29:00.004-04:00

Microsoft vs Google is like Goliath vs David

or is it Clinton vs Obama

or perhaps it's more like Potter vs Malfoy

oh no, I think it's more the fable of the Sun vs the North Wind.

Do you remember that one? The Sun and the North Wind are arguing about who is stronger, and decide to test their strength. They pick a man walking down the street, and one at a time will test who can make the man take off his coat sooner. The North Wind blows, and blows his hardest, and the man just wraps his coat around him tighter and tighter. When the North Wind gives up, the Sun shines hotter and hotter and, as you'd expect, in a few minutes the man takes off his coat.

Microsoft has been blowing and blowing for as long as I've been using computers. I started with ___ oh my, I can't even remember the name.... I'll just Google "operating systems" and see what they come up with. Oh, yes, DOS, or MS DOS or PC DOS. That was the Gates product that preceeded Windows. It was awkward, and I was forever losing material because I would change diskettes before closing down and restarting. But, Windows changed everything and we could save our material on a hard drive! Ureeka! No more lost anything. And now, we didn't have to change diskettes to change programs. Everything was built it.

If you're reading this blog, you're probably not old enough to remember those days. When I was in my 20's, we used to say that "you can't trust anyone over 30." Today, you could say, "you can't trust anyone who ever used DOS." It amounts to the same thing....

But, back to the Sun vs the North Wind. Soon, very, very soon, Google will have its chance to beat the Microsoft wind. It is starting to glow with open source technology and an invitation to all open source developers for help. Chrome is expected to be fast and lightweight and specifically aimed at those who use the Net. They will be going after netbooks as their first major market. According to techcrunch.com

Google writes, “We have a lot of work to do, and we’re definitely going to need a lot of help from the open source community to accomplish this vision.” They might as well set up enlistment booths on college campuses for their war against Microsoft.

Reuters says it will be fast and lightweight. Less memory for the operating system means users will be able to get to the web faster.

HTML5 will be a big part of this. You will be able to work in a browser when not connected, and upload when you are connected. -- Just like my old DOS experience, how many times have you lost material when you lost your connection to the web? Windows is vulnerable, perhaps for the first time. Vista is not considered good for netbooks and Windows XP is 8 years old. Again, According to techcrunch.com

It was built to run on Pentium IIIs and Pentium 4s. Google Chrome OS is built to run on both x86 architecture chips and ARM chips, like the ones increasingly found in netbooks. It is also working with multiple OEMs to get the new OS up and running next year.... Windows 7 is their only hope....

What will the cost be? Some say that it will be either nominal or free! Oh, oh. Watch out Microsoft wind. The sun is warming up and we're ready to take off our coats.

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Barack on health care plan:

2009-07-02T12:25:00.000-04:00

President Barack Obama said so many reassuring things yesterday and did his best to keep the naysayers and the fear mongerers calm.

"We want to allow people who are happy to keep their doctor and keep their insurance."

He wants a program that will invest in prevention. As he said, helping someone with obesity will help to prevent them from getting diabetes. Along these lines, the new health care reform should save money in the long run. He was clear that "more care is not better. The right care is better. Some rural areas have health care that is way below the costs of health care other places." He explained when a questioner said that Texas laws help to hold down rates, that this was not so. At the Mayo clinic, the primary care doctor calls in any needed specialists for a meeting. At that meeting they order all the tests that will be needed. This saves money because with the system we have now, each specialist orders his own set of tests -- doubling or tripling the cost of care. The way we reimburse now, prevents doctors from doing this in the community.

He wants the priorities to be on keeping people well, or minimizing illness. He said, "If we can get a system where people are getting regular checkups and mamograms - this will allow us to catch things early and to save costs for you and us."

He was reassuring that "None of these plans will be allowed to cut you out for a pre-existing condition."

He continued to explain that he believes "that there should be a public plan to keep admin costs low, provide good service, and to keep the private insurers honest. They will not be allowed to drop people. They will not be allowed to play with the charges; charging some more than others."

This was good news to us at Trends. You see that we have not approved of the way the private insurers have been happily taking the profits while cheating their customers.

There are always the questions: How do we pay for it? President Obama explained that they have a commitment to keep it deficit neutral.

2/3 will be a reallocation of money that's already being spent. For example, $177 billion will be given to private insurance over the next ten years as subsidy, Medicare advantage. This doesn't help families. We can give that to families so that they can have insurance.

1/3 we will pay for with increased revenues. Cap the itemized deductions so that very wealthy people don't get more of a deduction on their house, just because they have a bigger house.

And, we're going to have a savings from prevention. This will drive down costs.

They are working at identifying ways on Capital Hill to make it more user friendly. He explained that "the hardest part is yet to come. The ney-sayers are lining up. I ask them, "What's your alternative? To stand pat while more and more families lose their insurance and businesses have to chose between closing their doors or giving up health insurance for their workers."

President Obama does not accept the status quo on energy, health care or schools. We are all ready to move into the future and have to have courage for change. He is asking ordinary Americans to stand up and insist that now is the time. If we don't, then the lobbyists will win.

He explained the reason that single payer is off the table, which we have been wondering.

Single player plan works pretty well in other countries. Eliminates bureaucracy. Our plan evolved differently. For us to transition completely, could be hugely disruptive. We are looking for a uniquely American plan.

This is 1/6th of our economy.... We don't want to just upend it.

Ohhh, that's it.

Remember Compassionate Conservatism?

Apparently the conservative blogs and talk shows have been attacking a woman with kidney cancer. What jerks! Debby, who had a Kidney tumor irradiated while she was caring for her father asked a question. She lost her job due to damage from the radiation. Then she developed another tumor after her father's death. She doesn't yet qualify for social security, and lost her chance for disability. What can she do?

The president called her over to give her a hug. He said he didn't want her to feel alone. His staff would take her name and they would get back to her. He has compassion and the "compassionate conservatives" clearly don't and can't stand it.

Re: small businesses

This has been a big problem we know. This keeps people in jobs they don't like just for the insurance, whereas they would otherwise be starting their own businesses.

The insurance companies charge them way more than they charge bigger pools from large corporations. They are too small to be able to get the best deals from the insurance companies. The health care exchange will have many plans available. This will enable the small or independent business person to join a big pool that will help to drive down costs. If needed, subsidies will be available from the federal government.

Small companies with 25 or more employees will be required to contribute toward their employees insurance if they don't offer to pay for it up front. Companies smaller than that will be exempt from this requirement.

To All Those Who Say WAIT!

About Health Care affordability....He was clear: "If the health care system was working well, I'd be happy to leave it alone. Some employers see it going up 8, 10, 12% per year. Our salaries are not going up like that. Your employer has raised your out of pocket costs, and they have increased your deductible etc... Are you happy now, and will you be happy 5 years from now?"

He went on about the deficit in general:

Don't let people tell you that the deficit is from the Recovery Act. Most of the deficit is because of Medicare and Medicaid. A tiny, tiny part is the Recovery Act which was designed to keep firefighters and teachers and policemen on the job. It did that. But we have so much uncompensated care at hospitals, this is a big part of the deficit.

The Recovery Act helps people keep their insurance on Cobra, but it is so costly.... It was the right thing to do, but we can't afford to do it indefinitely.... We need something that enables the self employed to have insurance.

He reassured us that he is going to keep on pressing until it gets done.

A question on health care coverage being taxed was asked. He admitted that this is a huge coverage. Some have suggested eliminating the tax exclusion to employers. The idea was that if the tax payer were shopping on his own, he could get the credit. However, the individual tax payer is not going to be able to buy insurance for the same price that the pool was paying for him.

"If you are older or sicker, the price really gets jacked up.

So, we're not going to tax these benefits or eliminate the exclusion. Congress is talking about capping the exclusion. Those Cadillac plans would be taxed above the cost that a regular family is paying. Barack's one stipulation is that no one's insurance costs will go up as a result of health insurance reform.

As they used to say in X Files, "The Truth shall set you free."

He wants the American people to be well enough informed that the scare tactics don't work.

He doesn't want to give the insurance companies $177 billion for no reason as we are doing now. And, he doesn't want to pay for five tests when he could pay for two....

People worrying about rationing didn't surprise him because this is one of the conservative talking points. The truth is that he will make available information to doctors. If the blue pill has the best effect on z, and is less expensive than the red pill made by a different pharmaceutical company, he would like you and your doctor to have that information.

He is hoping that people can generate the necessary political will. No one wanted to do social security, but people didn't want older Americans on the street after working hard all their lives. Americans found a way to do something about it. The conservatives are still complaining about social security....

This is one of those times when Americans have to come together. Let's go after the future. We want a system that gives you choice; allows you to keep your doctor and drives down costs.

Speaking of Reaching for the Sun....

2009-07-01T11:19:00.000-04:00

Today's the day: the President's health reform online town hall at 1:15 Eastern. Watch, discuss, engage.

In case you're free! We didn't want you to miss it. We'll be back with a report later.

Japanese tree that picked up an SUV!

2009-07-01T10:48:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Rachael Maddow for bringing my attention to this story. (Thanks to http://www.boingboing.net/2009/06/25/junkyard-workers-ens.html for bringing this to Rachael's attention.)

As Winston Churchill said, "Never, never, never, never, never give up!" This tree followed his motto. It didn't let anything stop it from reaching for the sun! This should be our motto as we use the Law of Attraction. Most teachers of the Law of Attraction say that we usually reach for goals that are too low.

How sad if we humans don't have as much faith in ourselves as did this tree.

As Bruce Lipton explains, we are 70,000,000,000,000 coordinated cells that started in Mother Earth as minerals, and were energized by Father Sun. My, what a little bit of solar energy can do!

This is a hackleberry tree that started as a seed in a junkyard. It is now 25 years old, and wasn't stopped by anything that was between it and the energy is sought! The video below is in Japanese, but the photos are delightful.

Harmonic Wealth in giveaways!

2009-06-30T15:06:00.000-04:00

Harmonic Wealth as defined by James Arthur Ray is wealth found in all 5 areas of a person's life:

Financial
Relational
Mental
Physical
Spiritual

The harmonic wealth we are talking about today, does not include relational wealth, or possibly physical wealth, but does most certainly include financial, mental and spiritual wealth.

We start with the harmonic wealth pillar: financial wealth.

Hyundai is giving away a "price lock" for gas with every new car sold. This fixes the price of unleaded regular at $1.49/gallon for a year! This program runs until August 31, and they hope to sell more cars than usual during the "dog days of summer." In order to qualify, the customer forgoes $1,000 in rebates.

Eligible vehicles include the Accent, Sonata, Tiburon, Elantra, Elantra Touring, Entourage, Azera, the Santa Fe and the Tuscon and Veracruz. No, this does not include the Panoz or the Shelby Cobra above, but a girl has to have her dreams....

So, with gas prices at $2.87/gallon where I live, what does this mean? I use about 5.25 gallons per day for my commute to the city. (I live in a beautiful farming and fishing community.... Lucky, huh? No. Good manifesting!) So, for a year, I will now spend (if prices stay about where they are) $3872.82. The "gas lock" price will be $2024.74. This is a saving for me of $1848.08. I drive a Toyota 200 miles a day. If the Hyundai doesn't give me close to 38.27miles/gallon, then I might not save as much because I'll be using more gas. Four Hyundai models achieve more than 30 miles per gallon on the highway –Accent, Elantra, Elantra Touring and Sonata. So, will this give me harmonic wealth? A saving for me of $1800 is sweet.

Everyone has to do the math. It's only for one year that you will get these savings. And, it will only really give you savings if you drive A LOT, as I do.... I wonder what a Hyundai's value is as a turn in after one year?

If you're interested, here's how it works. First, you buy a Hyundai. Then you go to hyundai.pricelock.com and register a valid credit card. After enrolling, the customer will receive a Hyundai Assurance-branded card which must be used for future fill-ups. There is another strength to this. I avoid Exxon and other gas stations that have overpriced gas. With this card, if I were traveling, I would be able to get that same $1.49 price anywhere. That would delightful.... This would feel like harmonic wealth for me.

By the way, for more articles on harmonic wealth and other Law of Attraction secrets, go to Mindbridge Passageway and sign up as a subscriber. For this month, you will also get a copy of the ebook, Organic Living as our thank you.

Harmonic wealth pillars: Mental and Spiritual

There is about to be a huge Giveaway by Henry Gold, famous for his Christmas time giveaways known as 117 giveaways. Perhaps you've taken him up on this opportunity for harmonic wealth before?

This Friday, July 3rd, there are 100's of products by the top internet business people being given away. It will feel like Christmas at a Self Development Harrads or Macys with a free credit card!

Many are Law of Attraction products. These include Slumbering Power Archives and the Law of Attraction, Your Inner Wizard, Become a Divine Deliberate Attractor and out Organic Living. There's one on clearing the top 10 limiting beliefs, but we prefer our general clearing book The Slow Guy Always Wins on the One Lane Highway because that clears all limiting beliefs and enables you to receive harmonic wealth in all areas.

Then there are internet business products including products to help you make an ebook, or to help you build an interactive program. There are programs, audios and ebooks on sales and writing. I particularly like Soren Jordansen's Internet Marketing Success Formula There are books on information marketing and tips for affiliates. Have you manifested information? This is truly an information bonanza. This is part of harmonic wealth.

There are experts in NLP and EFT and in productivity. How to Get Things Done Fast with Three Simple Steps. So, don't miss out. Come to Mindbridge to receive your free ebook, Organic Living, and your invitation to the giveaway.

Five Reasons for Forex robots and to Invest in Forex.

2009-06-29T10:59:00.000-04:00

Forex using Forex robots is the opportunity for anyone wanting to save money for their children, for a new home, for their retirement or for grown up toys such as a sports car or a large boat.

There are five main reasons to invest in Forex, and there's an unstable stock market. For the next 10 years it is predicted by such financial advisors as Suze Orman that the stock market is going to be very volatile and unpredictable. The reasons for this are numerous as you probably already know, and one of those reasons is the precarious cash-debt ratio faced by most companies. This makes invesing in Forex, especially when using one of the Forex robots, even more attractive than it normally is. You'll be investing in what is currently the world's most valuable raw material -- money.

The Foreign Exchange(Forex) Market is the world's most liquid market, with hugh volumes being traded and exchanged 24 hours a day, 5 days a week. Wheras the stock market shares are tied to the value of each company, Forex has no such limitations.
The Forex market is also the most transparent. No CEO can manipulate the sales or marketing reports and no CFO is adjusting the financial picture. And, since negotiations take place in multimillion dollar exchanges, it is virtually impossible to manipulate the market. This is the perfect setting for a long term strategy using a Forex robot.
The Forex market is open when you have available time. When I was in the stock market, it was distressing that big events could change the picture when I was in a meeting. Sometimes I missed out on opportunities, and sometimes I was caught on the wrong side of a big change. With the help of one of the excellent Forex robots, you will never be caught on the wrong side of a change, and you can actively study the open and changing market whenever you have time.
Forex trends are based in history. Current events, speculation, interest rates and economic policies that effect the balance of trade all contribute to the rise of one currency and the fall of another. Still, the historical trend of a currency helps to determine strategy.
Leveraging is available at about 1:100. Leveraging can help you make money, but it can also raise your stress level. Forex robots do not have stress and can continue trading successfully no matter how much money is on the line, or how much risk you have put yourself in. However, we don't recommend engaging in high risk or leveraging beyond what is tolerable for you. Fear is generally counter productive.

If you are interested in getting started, there are two Forex Robots that will put you on autopilot and double your money in a month. They are both excellent at predicting the near future and at following a winning strategy without fear.

FAPTurbo works with all currencies and 95% success. Forex MegaDroid works only in dollars and euros, but also with 95% accuracy.

Either way, there's no reason to put this off, is there? It's the best market to be in now. These two Forex robots both have a history of 95% success and doubling your money in a month. Let history work for you.

For more details see Forex robots.

The Story of a Kansas Saint?

2009-06-25T11:18:00.000-04:00

The Miraculous Case of Chase Kear, and Father Emil Kapaun:

During the Korean War, there was an Army Chaplain: Father Emil Kapaun. He was from Wichita, Kansas, and assigned to the Eighth Cavalry which, in 1951 was overrun by the Chinese in North Korea. During the battle, Fr. Kapaun rescued wounded soldiers from execution until he was taken a prisoner of war. Even then, he continued to tend to the starving and sick among his fellow prisoners. Although none of this was considered a miracle, he stole food for the soldiers, defied guards’ attempts to indoctrinate soldiers and made pots out of roofing tin so they could boil snow for water; water for drinking and for washing their lice infested clothing. All this time, he maintained his practice of faith, prayer, and the rosary, living and exemplary life.

He suffered from a blood clot in his leg which went untreated although he was eventually put in the hospital. He died in May, 1951, two years before the end of the war. Soldiers returning from the POW camps told stories of Kapaun’s heroism and faith. Some claimed he deserved sainthood and the Medal of Honor. Since then, there have been two other cases of reported miracles involving Kapaun, local physicians report. Now, if this is true, Fr. Kapaun is well on his way to qualifying for sainthood.

There are five steps to canonization, or being declared a saint in the Catholic Church. First, a local bishop must initiate the process by collecting evidence from the person’s life and writings that they are especially virtuous. This evidence is sent to the Vatican where a panel of theologians and cardinals in the Congregation for Cause of Saints evaluate the life. If they believe it is warranted, they propose to the pope that he proclaim the candidate “venerable.” At that point, the local bishop among others who knew the candidate, begin looking for evidence of a miracle. The exception is that martyrs who die defending their faith can be beatified without a miracle. Once a second miracle is attributed to the candidate, full sainthood will be confirmed by the pope.

The story of Father Kapaun has been celebrated in Wichita and local parishes have prayed to him for years. The diocese has presented his case to the Vatican for Canonization and the process called beatification has been moving forward. He would be only the third American to be canonized as a saint.

This is where Chase Kear comes in. In October 2008, Chase Kear, a Colwich man, was seriously injured in a pole-vaulting accident. The doctors explained that he cracked his skull from ear to ear. They had little hope for him to survive both the operation (to remove skull fragments) and any infection that would likely occur afterwards. His neurosurgeon, Dr. Raymond Grundmeyer considers Chase’s survival a miracle.

The family organized communal prayers to Fr. Kapaun right away and credit Chase’s complete recovery a few weeks later, to Fr. Kapaun.

On June 21st, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints announced that they would investigate an alleged miracle in Kansas. Andrea Ambrosi will arrive on Friday from the Vatican. He is a lawyer by training and is coming to investigate. Witnesses will be called and data will be collected. This will be an elaborate process. Testimony will be compared as in a court of law.

This collection will go back to the Vatican, and questions will be compiled. There will be a “Devil’s Advocate” who will compile questions, and Fr. Kapaun’s defenders will argue their case. Eventually, when there are no more questions, Fr. Kapaun will be canonized as a saint. Traditionally, no one is canonized until 50 years have lapsed after their death. Fr. Kapaun has already jumped that hurtle.

Action Needed: Public Option Might be Off the Table

2009-06-24T15:41:00.000-04:00

This afternoon, Jane Hamsher reports that Rahm Emanuel has privately told Democratic Senators that the public option might be dropped if necessary for bipartisan support! This is wrong and will put all the control back where it is now, in the hands of the millionaires running the insurance industry.

We have to be clear about this. If you want a health plan that will control costs we have to include a public option. Any other plan will put control back in the hands of the insurance industry. They control medical costs (by denying you medications and procedures) but they have no interest in controlling insurance costs because their rewards come from profits, not from your health.

Jane Hamsher at Fire Dog Lake has put together a tool for fighting the Health Insurance Industry. They don't want us to have a public option, and are putting millions of dollars into the fight. All we have is public opinion, and to use this we have to let our Congress people know what we want.

It only takes 40 "no" votes to squash any watered down version without a public option! If we let the most progressive congress people know that is what we want, we might be able to beat the insurance industry.

Remember -- we're asking them to support a public plan that is

nationwide,
available from day one and
answerable to the voters and Congress.

We're asking them to commit to vote against anything that does not have these three features.

That's where the power is -- 40 votes against anything else can keep a bad bill from passing. Visit Fire Dog Lake for the Public Option Whip Count Tool.

There are also some Democrats who have spoken out against the Public Plan Option. Please call or write to them. ( Links are at the Bill Press Show.com. ) They are:

Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AR)

Senator Tom Carper (D-DE)

Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA)

Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR)

Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL)

Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA)

Senator Kay Hagan (D-NC)

Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND)

Senator Max Baucus (D-MT)

Links are available at the Bill Press Show.com.

Here is the letter I wrote. You are welcome to borrow from it....

Please, Senator Conrad, we need a plan that is nationwide. Smaller states will not have enough members to make a co-operative insurance plan economically feasible. When they are out priced by larger insurance conglomerates, they will disappear. And then we'll be right back here, which is not a good place.

Nationwide, we have more than enough healthy Americans to make a public option pay for itself. Include a reasonable co-payment and the healthy members will support the costs of those who get sick. This is how insurance would work if the CEO's weren't getting million dollar salaries.

Just among my friends, I know two people who were cut off..........(FIll IN YOUR OWN STORY)
...............................................
What happened to his family was fraudulent, but he didn't have the heart or the pocketbook to sue.

When people need health care, they are faced with a moral dilemma, to get fired and go on Medicaid, to commit a crime and go to prison, or, in some states, to go to the Emergency Room and use that for primary health care, or too often they go into debt and end up in bankruptcy.

Americans should not be faced with such choices. We need a public option that is nationwide, available from day 1, and answerable both to Americans and to Congress.

Please vote "No" on any other plan. It would be better to postpone this reform than to do something that is worse than what we have now.

Thank you,
(your name)

Some people already have a public option.
Sometimes it's paid for by taxes, and sometimes it requires a co-pay. Why, I wonder, can't the rest of us have access to it?

The Senate and Congress members all have a public option, paid for by American taxpayers. They know very well that it works. They use it and their families use it. Employees of Veteran's Hospitals around the country have the President's choice model. They can select from an array of health insurers all part of the government program. This is partially paid for by the employee through a reasonable co-pay. It is unlikely that these insurance companies will use Rescission of Coverage when the pool is so large. This is a tactic commonly used against members from small companies or small pools of clients.

Former Governor Dr. Howard Dean speaks eloquently on the public option, and answers all the tough Republican talking points.

As Dr. Dean emphasizes, the AMA doesn't support any plan where doctors are told what to do with their patients -- and this is what we have now! We need a system where doctors can make decisions with their patients, and where people's policies are not canceled when they or someone in their family gets sick.

Dr. Dean answers how the doctor's rates will not be cut with a public option. And, he explains why Kent Conrad's idea of a "co-op" will not work. There are just not enough numbers in small states to provide a cost effective co-op.

You are armed now with logic and sense. Letters/emails or telephone calls will help.... Please click on the link above (Bill Press Show and Public Option Tool), and let them know what you think.

It is important!

Update on Health Care Reform

2009-06-23T22:21:00.000-04:00

Just wanted to update everyone who might not have heard President Obama talk about health care reform this afternoon. Since it's still very much in the works and there is not a finished bill yet in Congress or the Senate, it was the last subject on his agenda.

I took great hope when he said that there would be a public option in the plan for health care reform. But, what was even better, was that he said the private health insurance companies would have to follow certain rules if they wanted to be on the list.

-- They would no longer be able to exclude new patients from access to health insurance because of pre-existing conditions.

This was very exciting to us at Mindbridge, because this makes life so difficult for so many people who either need to change jobs or for those whose company switches providers!

-- We are expecting that Rescission of Coverage from health insurance will no longer be permitted. He said that private health insurance companies would no longer be allowed to serve only the healthy.

This will be important to make the public option affordable. The only way that any insurance works is to spread the risk among many. If the public option were to inherit all the sick people and the private insurance has all the healthy ones, the public option would be way too expensive.

There were questions about the unfairness of the public option. The President scoffed. He said that since the government had been accused of "not being able to do anything right" he found it illogical that the private insurance companies would be complaining that they could not compete.

Yeah for Obama!

Private Health Insurance Companies Insist on the Right to Cancel Your Insurance Policy if You Get Sick:

2009-06-18T17:51:00.000-04:00

It's Called Rescission of Coverage...

When a private, for-profit health insurance company denies you coverage simply because you presented them with a big bill or a diagnosis which predicts big bills in the future, they have rescinded, or canceled your policy.

Executives from the 3 largest health insurers Tuesday, June 16th, told federal lawmakers that they would continue to cancel medical coverage for sick policy holders. Both Republicans and Democrats criticized the practice, but the insurers held firm.

This practice has left thousands of Americans without medical insurance at a time when they were facing costly medical bills.

Can anyone explain to me why this is less interesting news today than Senator Boxer's request to be called Senator rather than "Maam"?

WellPoint, Inc, United Health Group and Assurant canceled the coverage of more than 20,000 people, and saved their company more than $300 million in medical claims over a 5 year period. They targeted anyone with a diagnosis of breast cancer, lyphoma, high blood pressure and more than 1,000 other conditions.

Employees terminating these policies were praised in performance reviews. Neither Richard Collins of United Health's Golden Rule Insurance Co., nor Don Hamm, of Assurant Health, nor Brian Sassi of Well Point would commit to limiting rescissions only to fraudulent applications.

Even Republican Representative Michael C. Burgess from Texas said, "No one can defend... the practice of canceling coverage after the fact...."

The insurance executives held that they had the right to use rescission when "insurers ignore the law." Yet, lawmakers had been listening to testimony by many people from around the country who were dropped as soon as it was clear they were going to reduce the company profits -- ie, as soon as they had an illness that would need treatment.

The Los Angeles Times reported these stories:

One nurse from Texas said she lost her coverage after she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer. -- Her mistake was that she had failed to disclose a single visit to a dermatologist for acne. Additionally, it was found that she had listed her weight incorrectly. She had to cancel her scheduled mastectomy because the hospital wanted a $30,000 deposit. By the time her Representative, Joe Barton, had talked with the president of the insurance company and gotten her coverage reinstated, her tumor had grown from 3 centimeters to 7 centimeters and all the lymph nodes under her arm needed to be removed as well.

The sister of a man who died in Illinois of lymphoma, said his policy was rescinded for failure to report gallstones and a possible aneurysm that his physician had never disclosed to him, although he noted it on his chart.

At Mindbridge, we personally know a local business owner whose daughter died a few years after being born with severe birth defects. She needed a series of operations and after the first two, his health insurance policy was canceled. He was left with the bills. When he inquired about this, he was told that he had left off his application form a single visit to a doctor for "asthma" when he was 10 years old.

The insurance execs protest that they use rescission when they find "fraudulent applications" would be more believable if they found those mistakes or ommissions as often when the family members were all healthy and securely paying their premiums on time, as when the family is in need of health insurance because someone is very ill.

Another Republican from Texas, Representative Joe Barton, said, "...A company has a right to make sure there is no fraudulent information...but if a citizen acts in good faith, we should expect the insurance company that takes their money to act in good faith also."

When the committee chairman asked each executive if his company would commit to immediately stop rescissions except where they could show "intentional fraud" the answer from all three was, "NO."

Representative John Dingell of Michigan responded that this was exactly why we needed a public option for consumers.

CNN reports that when asked whether it bothered him that people were going to die because they insist on reviewing a policy when someone forgot to tell they they had been treated for acne, Hamm replied, "Yes sir, it does...."

This is the Problem with Private Insurance:

Any private company has the right to accept or reject any application for services. The health insurance companies do this based on tables of costs for services for particular diagnoses. This is how they estimate their costs and profits. We can accept that this is a necessary part of doing business. (- And this is a problem we will discuss shortly.)

However, when a person in good faith buys insurance, and they are accepted, they have every right to expect that the "insurance" company is actually going to be there when they need the insurance. Isn't this what insurance means?

If not, then they should call themselves something else, like, "Money Collecting Companies" or "Good Health Companies" so that you would have a clue that they are only going to be there for you when you and your family are "in good health."

But, the other problem is the exclusion that private, for profit insurance companies exercise for pre-existing conditions. This can be used to rescind your policy if you smoked a single cigarette when you were 18 years old, and later develop lung cancer.

This has the effect of keeping a person a slave to whatever company has been paying for their insurance once they develop "a condition." If you happen to lose your job, or worse, if you weren't working at the time that the condition was discovered, you will never qualify for insurance anywhere else. Or, if your employer decides to change carrier companies, all the employees who have been receiving treatment for "conditions" will be ineligible for fairly priced insurance. This can throw you in to the "high risk" pool which is far more expensive.

Without a public option that accepts everyone, these people will either go without medical help, or continue to mortgage homes to pay for needed medical treatment and, too often, end up losing their homes. Until the recent mortgage crisis, this was the most common reason for bankruptcy.

NBC tried to help with explaining the ins and outs of health insurance, but if you listen carefully she suggests asking questions before you sign up, and meeting with your doctor beforehand to go over your medical records. If your employer is offering only one health insurance company, you might just be out of luck.

We at Mindbridge submit that it should not matter whether you smoked one cigarette when you were 18, or whether you were ever treated for acne, or whether you were ever treated for asthma. the pool of people in the United States is so large, that there will always be more than enough healthy people putting money into the system that they aren't using, that we will cover the costs of those who are not so lucky and actually need financial help for their medical bills.

This is why we need a public, single payer, option, and this is why people need to be able to, and ought to switch from their current private, for profit, health insurance companies to the public option without penalty. It will not be cost effective if all the healthy people stay with private insurance companies, and the unhealthy people all end up in the public system.

Lawmakers' Ties to Health Care Industry:

Children with Autism Denied Insurance:

The Complete Story on Single Payer Health Insurance from Bill Moyers:

The Reasons for Alarming Health Costs!

2009-06-11T15:46:00.000-04:00

We have to talk about this because the American government is being bombarded, bombed, hounded and harassed by constituents in the "health care insurance" business. We have to talk about this, person to person, without all the hype and politics.

I can't believe that I keep hearing from the "news" shows that we have the best health care in the world, yet when the studies are done, we fair somewhere around Sri Lanka and Afghanistan in infant mortality. This is a slight exaggeration, but according to The British Health Journal, "The United States spends twice as much on health care as a percentage of gross domestic product as other industrialized countries. But the United States is behind the other countries in providing its citizens with good health outcomes, quality of care, access to care, efficiency, and equity, the report concludes."

Well, for twice as much money, we must get something.... Let's look at this report by The Conference Board of Canada. What are our scores?

Report Card:

1 Japan A
2 Switzerland A
3 Sweden B
4 France B
5 Australia B
6 Norway B
7 Italy B
8 Germany B
9 Austria B
10 Canada B
11 Finland B
12 Ireland C
13 Netherlands C
14 U.K. D
15 U.S. D
16 Denmark D

It is notable that the United States got one A, in "self-reported health status". You might realize that this has nothing to do with the health industry. This is simply a measure of our knowledge of health. We know when we are sick. However, we were the only country on the list to get a D in "life expectancy", "premature mortality" and "infant mortality". Denmark and UK have D's in specific diseases. But, no one else has D's for general mortality rates.

Our only B, is in "mortality due to cancer" which means, I think, that statistically speaking, it's better to get cancer than to be overweight or to have high blood pressure or respiratory disease. An unhealthy American is at greater risk of death than an otherwise healthy cancer patient.

Well, we could solve this if we had more competition, couldn't we? Isn't competition the stabilizing and equalizing element in a capitalist system? Yes. So, why are the lobbyists for the insurance industry fighting any talk of a government single payer system? Why do they keep saying that "They don't want the government to come between them and their doctors"?

I don't understand why the news commentators are so happy with a junior college graduate working for the insurance company coming between their doctors and their treatment, but let's look at the salaries of the top insurance companies. I think this it the reason for the intensity of the arguments.

Health Insurance Company CEO Salaries for 2005:

The numbers are numbing, which is why we should do something about this:

* United Health Group
CEO: William W McGuire
2005: 124.8 mil
5-year: 342 mil

* Forest Labs
CEO: Howard Solomon
2005: 92.1 mil
5-year: 295 mil

* Caremark Rx
CEO: Edwin M Crawford
2005: 77.9 mil
5-year: 93.6 mil

* Abbott Lab
CEO: Miles White
2005: 26.2 mil
5-year: 25.8 mil

* Aetna
CEO: John Rowe
2005: 22.1 mil
5-year:57.8 mil

Aetna
Ron Williams
2008: $24,300,112 and personal use of an aircraft and
vehicle, financial planning and 401(k).

* Amgen
CEO: Kevin Sharer
2005:5.7 mil
5-year:59.5 mil

* Bectin-Dickinson
CEO: Edwin Ludwig
2005: 10 mil
5-year:18 mil

* Boston Scientific
CEO:
2005:38.1 mil
5-year:45 mil

* Cardinal Health
CEO: James Tobin
2005:1.1 mil
5-year:33.5 mil

* Cigna
CEO: H. Edward Hanway
2005:13.3 mil
5-year:62.8 mil

* Genzyme
CEO: Henri Termeer
2005: 19 mil
5-year:60.7 mil

* Humana
CEO: Michael McAllister
2005:2.3 mil
5-year:12.9 mil

* Johnson & Johnson
CEO: William Weldon
2005:6.1 mil
5-year:19.7 mil

* Laboratory Corp America
CEO: Thomas MacMahon
2005:7.9 mil
5-year:41.8 mil

* Eli Lilly
CEO: Sidney Taurel
2005:7.2 mil
5-year:37.9 mil

* McKesson
CEO: John Hammergen
2005: 13.4 mil
5-year:31.2 mil

* Medtronic
CEO: Arthur Collins
2005: 4.7 mil
5-year:39 mil

* Merck Raymond Gilmartin
CEO:
2005: 37.8 mil
5-year:49.6 mil

* PacifiCare Health
CEO: Howard Phanstiel
2005: 3.4 mil
5-year: 8.5 mil

* Pfizer
CEO: Henry McKinnell
2005: 14 mil
5-year: 74 mil

* Well Choice
CEO: Michael Stocker
2005: 3.2 mil
5-year: 10.7 mil

* WellPoint
CEO: Larry Glasscock
2005: 23 mil
5-year: 46.8 mil

Angela Braly
2008: $9,844,212
Other compensation included use of a private jet for
her and her family and just under $10,000 for legal
services.

* Wyeth
CEO: Robert Essner
2005:6.5 mil
5-year: 28.9 mil

Who would have guessed that they earn more than Major League Baseball players? What does this mean per minute? William McGuire is paid $234 a minute. If he takes 5 minutes to walk to the men's room, and spends 5 minutes in there, we have paid him $2,374.43 to take a piss. This is based on working 24 hours a day and 365 days a year. If he only works a 12 hour day, double the amount to piss -- $4,748.86! If he takes weekends off, McGuire's pee break costs us $6,641. If he takes an hour for lunch, his lunch costs his insurers $39,846.74. This does not improve our health care! I am going to say that again. Paying a man $6,641 to pee does not improve our health!

I don't know about you, but I think the government could do this for less.... Maybe they would need 4 guys to do the work that McGuire does. At $90,000 per person, it would still save us about $124,440,000 per year against United Health Care costs. This is the reason that the "health care" insurance industry is fighting any thought of having a government single payer system.

Whereas Republicans normally speak highly of competition, they do not want any competition in this field. It's no wonder. Any government program that pays it's executives $90,000 a year to administer a government health insurance, is going to win the competition hands down. My goodness, these companies might have to lower their executive compensation to compete!

Shake up Your World View:

It is also worth mentioning, since our auto industry is in such dire straits that Japan, in first place for health outcomes, gives health care to every citizen. Their auto companies, Honda and Toyota, have never had to supply health insurance to their employees or retirees! This has been, as you can imagine, a great savings for them and has helped to make them the most competitive companies in the world. So, when someone complains about the American auto unions, please remind them that the Japanese worker gets the best health care in the world from his government, while General Motors has to pay for the health care of their workers. The playing field is not even.

In China, a family pays a doctor to keep them healthy, so they keep him on a monthly retainer. If anyone in the family gets sick, they stop paying him until they are all well again.... Do you see how this changes things? The health industry in China is really a health industry, where we really have a sick industry. Our medical people are paid when we are unhealthy.... Go ahead, have another cigarette and that Big Mac and support your local health care professional. Just a thought....

Please Put in Your Two Cents!

It was never more important to let your public officials know what you want. Believe me, it is not intuitively obvious to them. There is way too much "stupid talk" clogging the airwaves.

To contact your Senator, Congressman or any other government official, go to http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home/

Put in your zip code, and they will give you the names of every State and Federal elected official. Click on any name, and you'll be taken to their record with an opportunity to click again to go to their individual website where there will be another link to click on to email them.

You are on the internet now to be reading this blog. Please, do not put this off. We have thousands of lobbyists paid thousands of dollars to win against our best interests. Support your Congressman and Senator in doing the right thing for you. Write them or call them ASAP. Take back your government.

Prickly Shark Story at the Monterey Aquarium

2009-06-11T12:31:00.000-04:00

Tuesday night a rare Prickly Shark was captured and held at the Monterey Bay Aquarium (http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/news/) for a few hours, until 1:30 pm on Wednesday afternoon.

Why, you might ask, did they go to all that trouble to hold the fish for only a few hours?

The Prickly Shark is a denizen of the deep, normally living in the Pacific at depths of 3,000 feet in submarine canyons. It is distinguished from other sharks by its thorny skin, and the characteristic dorsal fin of the shark is broken, so that it seems to be a double dorsal. The second fin is a bit smaller than the forward or first dorsal. And, it's head is smaller than the characteristic Great White or Grey or Tiger Shark, more similar to a Sand Shark or Catfish.

Deep water fish, according to an aquarium spokesman, Ken Peterson, have trouble adapting. I suppose that traffic at 3,000 feet deep is not what it is in Monterey, and it's likely that these creatures are a bit shy and private. We would say that he was quite adaptive at getting his desires across to the staff. -- Who ever said that Sharks were "primitive"?

He flipped upside down and went into what seemed to be an hypnotic state. I had always heard that Sharks needed to keep moving to breath as they didn't have any way to move water across their gills except to keep moving, so this must have put him at risk for suffocation as well. (Fish disassociation?) This was a signal to researchers that he needed to be put back into the wild.

They did tag the Shark with a tag that will register depths, temperature, latitude and longitude for six months before it pops off, and will teach researchers more about this creature without any harm being done.

This Aquarium has a history of quickly releasing captured wildlife back into their natural habitat. They have also held Great White Sharks for six months or less 4 times and successfully returned them to the ocean. Good for them. It's too bad that this can't be done with more wild animals in zoos as well....

Belmont Stakes Morning Odds and Post Time

2009-06-06T09:36:00.000-04:00

Summer Bird
Photo courtesy of Coady Photography

Good Morning to all on Belmont Stakes Day. This is a beautiful morning in New York. We've had two days of fairly heavy rain, but today should be dry.

Just wanted to give you the morning odds.

By Post Positions:

1. Chocolate Candy (10-1)

2. Dunkirk (4-1)

3. Mr. Hot Stuff (15-1)

4. Summer Bird (12-1)

5. Luv Gov (20-1)

6. Charitable Man (3-1)

7. Mine That Bird (2-1)

8. Flying Private (12-1)

9. Miners Escape (15-1)

10. Brave Victory (15-1)

More updates will be available up until Post Time at 6:27pm Eastern time at http://www.BelmontStakes.com.

As you can see, Mine That Bird and Charitable Man are the first and second favorites according to the morning odds at Belmont, and won't make you much money with a win, although it would be great fun to watch Borel become the first jockey to win the Triple Crown on more than one horse (Triple Crown History).

Summer Bird (12-1) is Mine That Bird's brother, and was 6th in the Kentucky Derby despite the fact that he was in the gloppy, sticky mud the whole race having started at post position 17. He had also been lightly raced to that point, and the Derby doesn't favor the inexperienced. He might just take the early lead since there isn't a sprinter on the ticket. He has an experienced Belmont jockey on his back in Kent Desormeaux which is particularly important in the Belmont. You would think that this long race would favor the closers, but it doesn't. Historically, the stalkers do much better at Belmont, or the close closers. The only horse to come from way back was his father and Mine That Bird's father, Birdstone who won the 2004 Belmont Stakes. At the Belmont Stakes, it pays to be in front or close to the front horse when you pass the mile marker. This is the horse that will give you the best chance for a win with great odds. His mother's sire won the Preakness, so there is definitely speed in his heritage, as well as stamina.

Dunkirk (4-1) is another horse who seems to just be coming into his groove. He has shown speed and stamina, but he's also been a little gawky and awkward up until now. His trainer, Todd Pletcher, who is not given to excitement, has shown some this week after watching his workouts. His jockey, John Velasquez won the Belmont in 2007 on Rags to Riches, owned by Dunkirk's owners. He is a New York Jockey who knows Belmont well and has ridden more than 3,000 winners. He was excited by Dunkirk's workouts. His advice to the other jockeys to beat Mine That Bird was, "sit on the rail".

From the number 2 and number 4 post positions, Dunkirk and Summer Bird will have an easier time getting to the rail than Mine That Bird leaving from post position 7 at the Belmont Stakes.

At (10-1) Chocolate Candy is another good bet, although many feel that even though he's been working out at Belmont for most of May, he still seems to favor the synthetic surfaces. The dirt will be a little tricky today after two days of solid rain. It might dry up and be soft, but not sticky, or it might be a little challenging.

It takes 3 in the money to make a race. The other horse we think has a great chance, even though the odds are not in the bettors' favor, is Charitable Man (3-1), leaving from post position 6, right next to and just inside Mine That Bird. As we have been saying, he's 2 for 2 at Belmont, although he hasn't raced against the best. He wasn't at the Kentucky Derby and he wasn't at the Preakness. He might take the lead, but if he doesn't, he's a close stalker and these horses are favored at the Belmont Stakes.

We can imagine a race with Summer Bird and Charitable Man in front, with Dunkirk and Mine That Bird coming up from behind to round out the front 4. What will be the final order? That is the question of the day. The Belmont is often a surprise.

Twitter in China has been shut down!

2009-06-04T15:34:00.000-04:00

Remembering Tiananmen Square, 20 Years Ago:

Twenty years ago, in China's Tiananmen Square, a lone student stood before tanks to stop the killing. Today, in commemoration, China has blocked YouTube and Twitter and most blogs that offer access to people outside of China. No foreign visitors or newsmen are allowed into the square today many tell us. By reports, the economy in China has improved, but has anything else really improved?

How did the massacre start?

The death of a pro-market, pro-democracy and anti-corruption official, Hu Yaobang, brought 1,000,000 people into Tiananmen Square to mourn in community. Protests were not organized or unified. There had been protests from April 15th through April 17th before the students marched to the square. 500 students from China University of Political Science and Law gathered before the Great Hall of the People until the police attempted to move them. By midnight, 3000 from Peking University joined them, and then 1000 from Tsinghua University. And thus the crowd grew. There were impromptu speeches. Many sang patriotic songs.

In the morning of April 18th, some presented seven demands and demanded to see members of the Standing Committee. Others tried to force their way into the Shongnanhai building complex demanding to see government leaders. Security police prevented this and the students formed a sit-in until April 20th when they were sent away by police using batons.

The funeral of Hu Yaobang was to be April 22, so 100,000 students gathered in the square before it was to be closed for the funeral. Throughout China there were various kinds of protests, and boycotts at the Universities. Their complaints had to do with corruption and demands for freedom of the press. Urban workers joined them because they were concerned about inflation and corruption.

In May, the students were well ordered, organizing an hunger strike and boycott of classes, just two days before Gorbachev was to visit.

Three young men lobbed paint filled eggs at the massive portrait of Mao Zedong. Other students, showing their respect for order, helped the police to arrest them. They were kept in prison until 1998 and 2000. The hunger strike was the main focus and did rally widespread support both in China and outside.

Today, in 2009, those three men met in Washington. Two are currently living in the United States and one, Lu Decheng, is living in Calgary, Canada. The Canadian government helped his wife and two children to be able to immigrate to Canada to join him just last year. Six months ago a new baby was born to them.

Back in China, in May 1989, two members of the leadership, Zhao Ziyang and Li Peng differed in their ideas about the protest. They had expected it to die down. Zhao Ziyang had argued for a soft response, whereas Li Pang argued for a crackdown. Ultimately, the lengthy demonstration was seen to be a threat to the stability of the country.

There were reports of protests in 400 cities. People were traveling to the Square to join in that protest. Martial Law was declared on May 20th. The hunger strike was in its third week and the government decided to act before there were deaths.

General Secretary Zhao Ziyang was ousted from leadership for being too soft. The local military was not in favor of a crackdown. They had been turned away once by the numbers of protesters. The political leadership looked for individual divisions willing to comply with orders. They brought in soldiers and tanks from outside the city -- the 27th and 28th Armies of the People's Liberation Army -- to take control of the city.

Protesters burned buses to use them as roadblocks. The soldiers used tear gas, rifles and tanks to clear the streets. The assault on the square began at 10:30 pm, June 3rd. APC's and armed troops with fixed bayonnets approached from various positions, shooting ahead and off to the sides. Students seeking to hide were pulled out and beaten. By 4 or 5 in the morning, tanks smashed into the square, crushing vehicles and people.

The unknown man who was famously pictured standing in front of the tanks to stop them at one intersection (the Avenue of Eternal Peace, ironically), has never resurfaced. It is believed by some that police executed him. Jan Wong in Red China Blues: My Long March from Mao to Now, wrote that he is alive and hiding in Mainland China.

The Chinese government claims that 241 died, including soldiers, but the Chinese Red Cross immediate figure was 2,600 deaths, mostly civilians.

Afterward, the government arrested protesters and their supporters and the foreign press was banned from the country.

China Today:

China is cracking down on the internet. 20 years ago students were demanding freedom of the press, and today, authorities are shutting down blogs, forums and social media such as Twitter to stem political discussion.

Technology is seen as a threat to an authoritarian society where information is tightly controlled.

China has the world's largest online population. People have gone to online communities to spread information. The government has Internet Monitors who close message boards. Blogs maintained by government critics are closed down. YouTube has been blocked in China since March and Twitter was shut down Tuesday night and Flikr could not be accessed as of yesterday. http://bit.ly/9ob87

In a country with freedom of the press, we will sometimes have opinion and propaganda masking as "news". There is nothing we can do about this except to ask those in public places (airports, bars and restaurants, medical waiting rooms etc..) showing such fake news to shut it off or change the channel.

Some Triple Crown History

2009-06-04T12:47:00.000-04:00

Willie Shoemaker came the closest to winning the Triple Crown on two different horses in 1959. He won the Kentucky Derby on Tomy Lee (above photo, inside rail), just winning in one of the most exciting finishes ever. Then, at the Preakness, he was aboard Sword Dancer for a second place finish. At the Belmont, again on Sword Dancer, he won. This got me wondering whether Sword Dancer was in the Derby so I looked it up. Guess who got second in that exciting finish above? Sword Dancer!

So, in 1959 Sword Dancer was edged out at the wire in the Derby, was second in the Preakness, and first in the Belmont.... The question is: Is Mine That Bird a Sword Dancer? Does he have the heart and the stamina to be the strongest on Saturday, in spite of having raced the toughest races in the last month and a half?

Another comparison. From the above photo, you can see that Sword Dancer was not a huge horse. Neither is Mine That Bird.

Belmont Stakes 2009: Post Positions

2009-06-03T16:25:00.000-04:00

Hi There. Today is the day and the post positions have been selected.

Post Position:

# 1: Chocolate Candy
# 2: Dunkirk
# 3: Mr. Hot Stuff
# 4: Summer Bird
# 5: Luv Gov
# 6: Charitable Man
# 7: Mine That Bird
# 8: Flying Private
# 9: Miner's Escape (Zito entry)
#10: Brave Victory (2nd Zito entry and he could make switch here.)

Belmont Stakes 2009: Update

2009-06-02T15:17:00.000-04:00

OK Horse fans, as we hoped, Rachel Alexandra has pulled out. She is a great filly, but the Belmont is just too far for her. She will do well as a seasoned filly and it made no sense to risk breaking her in this one. At present, she is posing for Vogue! Fashionable lady....

This makes Mine That Bird,(5th photo) Kentucky Derby winner, the unchallenged favorite. Calvin Borel, his Derby jockey, is back which will give him a great chance to finish in the top 3 if not on top.

If Calvin wins this one, he will be a Triple Crown Jockey! For those of you who are not frequent bettors, this means the odds are not very good and a bet on him to win will not earn you much money. You might want to include him in the exotics.

We mentioned Charitable Man and Dunkirk last week as powerful long distance horses, and they are now tied in the betting odds for 2nd place at 5/1. Dunkirk was at 4/1 last week, and Charitable Man at 9/2.

Charitable Man (2nd photo) is undefeated at Belmont. His style is to be leading or stalking and Mine That Bird will have to run past him if he wants this win. And, Mine That Bird is tired after the first two legs of the Triple Crown. And, Dunkirk is less experienced, although built for the distance. Without a speed horse to push his pace, Charitable Man may well be out in front from the start.

Dunkirk (4th photo) was a favorite at the Kentucky Derby, and disappointed a lot of fans. Yet, inexperience is not an asset at the Derby. The big grey sat out the Preakness, has been practicing at Belmont and should have his best run. There's not a lot of news about Dunkirk. His jockey isn't making any predictions, but he has noted how competitive Dunkirk is and when he wants him to have an easy workout, he has to keep him away from other horses. His trainer, Todd Pletcher, is excited now by Dunkirk's stride. He seems a different horse from the gangly adolescent who ran at the Derby.

And, following the progress of last week to bet on the underdogs, Chocolate Candy (3rd photo) has moved from (14/1) to (12/1). Chocolate Candy has been at Belmont since the Derby. He's comfortable at the track and his last workout under rider Molina, he covered a half mile in :50.25. Molina says, "He just skips over the track.... I had to hold him back from going faster." His jockey, Mike Smith, can never be counted out.

Other odds are:

Flying Private moving from (25/1) to (16/1) just after his Preakness run where he exceeded expectations with a late run in the final quarter. He couldn't quite keep up with Mine That Bird.

Mr Hot Stuff at (22/1) is a beautiful horse and worth a look. He's had some good runs although his Derby was terrible. He has A seasoned Belmont winner on his back, Edgar Prado and a trainer who has done great preparation for the Belmont. Although he has several in his bloodline who won the Belmont or who like distance races on dirt, he didn't seem comfortable on the dirt at the Derby, and since then he has been on artificial track at Keeneland. He will be flying in to NY tomorrow, so he won't have much time on the dirt at Belmont. He is a closer and there isn't a speed horse....

Miner's Escape (30/1)(a Zito entry) was the winner of the Federico Tesio race at Pimlico. Zito doesn't give him as much confidence as he does to his partner, Brave Victory.

Summer Bird (35/1) has the same sire as Mine That Bird, Birdstone. He is a closer, and should like the distance. At the Derby, he had to go wide and only finished 6th, but he has shown some late speed which should do him well at Belmont. His jockey, Kent Desormeaux has had a week at Belmont to get to know him. Desormeaux used only hands to urge him and he increased his speed for every quarter and came out of the workout with more energy and enthusiasm than he had at the start. He is fit and ready. He has been training in blinkers and hind shoes with toe grabs that improve his stability on the dirt. His trainer, Tim Ice, began training only last summer. This will be his first visit to the Empire State Building, today.

Luv Guv (40/1) named after Eliot Spitzer only passed horses who went backwards past him in the Preakness.

Added this week are Brave Victory (25/1) who was third to Charitable Man's victory in the Peter Pan Stakes at Belmont the weekend after the Kentucky Derby and a Zito entry. And Nowhere to Hide (50/1) also a Zito entry, who showed less speed than Musket Man in the Tampa Bay Derby.

Musket Man will be sitting this one out to give him a better shot at the rest of the season.

Summary:

So, where are we? There are a number of great horses at this year's Belmont which is going to make the bettor's choices difficult. Yet, we have some picks.

Starting with the best odds, these are all horses who have been resting and working out at Belmont:

Summer Bird at (35/1) (Top Photo) and the same sire as Mine That Bird, should not be counted out. These are good odds and he has a great jockey. He has new equipment and has been loving it at Belmont this week. He's feeling good.

Chocolate Candy at (12/1) is looking good. He's also been resting and working out at Belmont. He's also got a great jockey in Mike Smith.

Todd Pletcher never shows excitement and he is excited this week (in the same way he was not excited before the Derby) over the way Dunkirk (5/1) has been moving. He's a little bit of an unknown because we've never seen him really put it all together. He could do it this Saturday.

Charitable Man (5/1) (second photo) has been undefeated at Belmont. He is the most likely horse to take the lead (given the current entrants) and he has the stamina to keep going. The closers are going to have to run him down and he's not going to slow down for them.

Mine That Bird is hard to bet against, especially with Calvin Borel on his back because Calvin is red hot this year! But, odds are against any horse who has run the first two legs of the Triple Crown. He has to be tired, and he'll be up against 4 horses who are not. He is just coming to Belmont tomorrow, and he'll be racing against 4 horses who have been here for a few weeks. He will be flying in, and he'll be up against 4 horses who have made Belmont their home for the month of May. They know it wet, and dry. They know it warm and cool. They know the food and the sounds at night. I just don't think he can overcome all this. That is why there are so few Triple Crown winners.

Free Education from Academic Earth

2009-05-28T13:15:00.000-04:00

Academic Earth is now live and FREE!! Thousands of video lectures are available from the world's top scholars. Did you ever wish you could take a course at Princeton, Yale or Sanford? You might have thought that you couldn't get in or you couldn't afford it. Well, you must have manifested this program, because now none of those things are a problem. School is free. The top Universities are offering lecturers for free. And, there are no prerequisites or GPA limits.

Bill Bradley is teaching "Russia: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow" from Princeton.

Also from Princeton, Alan Blinder is teaching "Origins of the Financial Mess". I didn't know who he was, so clicked on his name and got another lecture he's teaching, and the information that he's a professor of Economics and Public Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School. They also then give you "Related Lectures" And, if you're not interested right now, the back click works just fine.

Walter Lewin from MIT is teaching "Physics II: Electricity and Magnetism" in case you ever really did want to know how electricity does what it does. And, if you wanted to know how to make anything go away....Charles Bailyn is teaching "Stellar Mass Black Holes" from Yale. Paul Bloom, also from Yale, is teaching "What it is like to Be a Baby: The Development of Thought" and "What Happens When Things Go Wrong: Mental Illness"

Does that remind you of terrorism? Sorry. Well, John Merriman from Yale is teaching "Dynamite Club: The Anarchists" which is about terrorism and those who seek to destroy a state rather than to gain power for themselves. Perhaps this is a little much for you, and you'd prefer something less incendiary.... Cristine Hayes from Yale School of Religion is teaching "Studying the Old Testament".

If you click on a lecture that looks interesting, you get the lecture and you get the course description at the bottom of the page and related lectures off to the right of the page. When you use the topic contents at the left of the home page, you get all the courses on a particular subject, laid out neatly with pictures from the videos, the University identity and the professor's name. Click on any picture, and you instantly get the course.

Confused about how you got to wherever you got to? Click on the name, "Academic Earth," in the top banner, and you're sent right back to the home page. It just couldn't be easier or more intuitively obvious.

At the bottom of each particular subject page, are the Editor's Picks. I imagine these change periodically, but today they range from THomas Friedman, Paul Bloom, Robert Shiller Marian Diamond and Kavita Ramdas, of MIT, Yale, Berkeley and Stanford.

Isn't this the best thing since the invention of the fork? (And, I believe that Italy and France are still arguing over who should be credited for that.) Registration is possible, but does not seem to be necessary.

Other free courses:
MIT's Open Course Ware

Stanford's Engineering Everywhere

How to get a free college education online: There is a recommended article at http://lifehacker.com/software/education/technophilia-get-a-free-college-education-online-201979.php

Early Horse Betting on the 2009 Belmont Stakes

2009-05-27T13:37:00.000-04:00

According to Phil Simms this morning, so many people are betting for the underdogs, that the favorites are getting better odds. Is this a matter of Remote Viewing, or is this a wish to regain the money they didn't win in the Kentucky Derby? Point of fact here: 9 out of the last 12 winners of the Belmont did not run in the first two legs of the Triple Crown. The Belmont favors the rested horse by 75%.

At this time, race favorites are Mine that Bird (with and easy inside rail run) and Rachel Alexandra (opened 4.5 odds) have been dropped to 5.4 and 11.4 respectively. Dunkirk (banged about at the Derby in the first turn but has been at Belmont since, skipping the Preakness) is at 4/1 and Charitable Man at 9/2.

The race will take place on June 6th, just a week from this Saturday. Many of the horses listed have still not confirmed 100%. The Belmont is 1.5 miles.

The Kentucky Derby is 1.25 miles, and the longest race that the young horses have raced up to that point. This is the reason the winner is seldom the favorite. It's always a brand new race for the 3 year olds. This year, it was wet which adds additional advantage to the stronger horse with more endurance, and sometimes fewer races to have tired them before the Derby.

The Preakness is the shortest of the races and offers some advantage to the sprinters, if they were not too tired after the grueling Kentucky win.

At the Preakness, Mine that Bird was closing, after a tough run, on Rachel Alexandra when she won the Preakness. She is big enough. Her jockey, Calvin Borel changed to her from Mine that Bird and he is confident. She won from the 13th post position. She was moved to the lead position by the first gate and never gave way. She likes to run in front and has won previous races by a combined 43.5 lengths. This is notable because she had a 4 length lead going down the Preakness stretch and only won by one length. Her jockey said that she was tiring at the end of the race, and he had to hold her together, which he did and she did, but this wouldn't bode well for the Belmont, the longest race any of them have ridden.

Musket Man (with good early speed) was 3rd in the Derby and third in the Preakness, followed by Flying Private and Big Drama.

At the Belmont we will see Mr. Hot Stuff at 35/1 who is now at 25/1. Summer Bird opened at 40/1 and is now down to 30/1. Chocolate Candy was 16/1 and now 15.1 with little interest. Luv Gov was the biggest longshot at 50/1 and hasn't changed. Flying Private is still at 20/1 and Miner's Escape is still at 25/1.

Chocolate Candy came alive in the second half of the derby from 8th position, way on the outside, to finish 5th. He had an easy trip at the Derby and rested during the Preakness. This is a colt bred for endurance and he's had a five week training period at Belmont to become familiar with the track and to peak. He will have Jockey Garrett Gomez on his back. Apparently, Gomez has worked him at Belmont and likes the way the colt runs. He had had time at Belmont to get used to dirt. He was raised in California on synthetic tracks.

Watch here how Chocolate Candy comes from behind and then fights off the other competitor with a second acceleration.

Musket Man was bred to be a 6 furlong specialist. The Kentucky Derby is 5 furlongs, so the Belmont should be his race. He won the Tampa Bay Derby at 1 1/16 miles and the Illinois Derby at 9 furlongs. At the Derby, he was boxed in on the inside, and running right behind the leaders the whole race. He made a little run but was outrun by Mine that Bird and didn't seem to make an effort afterward. I wonder what might have happened if he had been able to lay back a bit with a little more breathing room in the early part of the race? And, he's been racing every month since last October. He's a professional, but still young for that kind of schedule.

Charitable Man is fresh. He's bred for this distance. He's been at this track and won 2 for 2. He shows a nice maturity, being comfortable letting the speed horses take the lead and run out of steam. He seems to have plenty left at the end and is able to turn it on when asked and accelerate away from a pack.

Dunkirk will have Jockey John Velasquez on board. Velasquez won the 2007 Belmont for these owners on Rags to Riches. Dunkirk has less experience than any other horse, and if you watch the videos of his few races, he can be a little loapy in the turns. This may have been the reason for his rough start at the Derby. It will be important for him to have an experienced Jockey like Velasquez, and an advantage to have had this time at Belmont to get used to the track, the turns, and his stall.

-- More as we get closer to the race --

Hot Computer Offer from Verizon: First Netbook

2009-05-27T00:31:00.000-04:00

Get this, Verizon is offering their first netbook. They contracted with HP to provide the HP Mini 115 NR.

It is priced at $199 and has a 2 year contract available. Monthly data access will run you another $40 (which includes 250 MB of data transfer and additional charges beyond that) to $60 monthly ( with 5 GB of transfer and additional for extra), but if you are working out of your car, this is about the same as the Sprint Mobile offer as long as you don't exceed your contracted data transfer limits. Sprint no longer has an unlimited plan. Their best is $59 for 5 GB of data transfer, and they don't provide a computer. Their cards can run more than $300 additional.

The Mini has a 10 inch display with an adequate 1024 x 576 resolution, a 1.6 GHZ Intel Atom N270 processor. Intel has also supplied a GMA 950 graphics card. The HP comes with 1GB of RAM and an 80 GB hard drive, WiFi, Bluetooth and a 3 cell battery.

The keyboard is almost the size of a regular keyboard. The Mini has 2 USB 2.0 ports as well as an integrated card reader for SD and MMC cards.

This unit is delightfully small and weighs about 2.4 pounds. It is silent, with only a small click to let you know the hard drive was working. But it gets hot on the bottom under the touch pad according to the reviewer at The Tech Herald.

I have gotten used to this with a Dell Inspiron. When on my lap I keep it balanced lightly at the edges so I don't burn my legs. It sounds as if the HP Mini must be treated just as carefully, or used on a flat tray or table.

The tester also found that at one location, the download speed was signifcantly slower than at other locations. This was a surprise, and never really explained.

All in all, this sounds like a good deal if you actually have need of internet-on-the-go.

Belcourt Castle: What's Up?

2009-05-26T15:55:00.000-04:00

There are some beautiful homes in Newport Rhode Island, former home of the America's Cup elimination series, and Belcourt Castle, at 50,000 square feet is the largest. Belcourt Castle, built in 1894, is up for sale, and it may be haunted. The sole surviving member of the family, Harle Tinney, has put it up for sale at $7.2 million. So, if you've been in the market for your own castle, you might want to take a look.

It was built for Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont (after whom Belmont Park race Track is named) who inherited his father's (Rothschild) banking wealth and had his own love of French architecture and horses. Oliver was a graduate of the Naval Academy at Annapolis following his forebears Commodore Matthew Perry and Oliver Hazard Perry. The 3 acre site has extensive stables and carriage areas reflecting his love of horses. He married Alva Erskine Smith Vanderbilt who contributed to the collection of antiques.

Since 2006 when her husband passed away, Harle Tinney has been running the Castle by herself.

The ghosts?

Tinney has led ghost tours. Apparently, she and guests have seen a strange man in a dark robe with beard and hat who comes and goes, sometimes through the walls. He is known as "the monk" and seems to be the inspiration for one of the carvings.

The antique chairs in the Gothic ballroom also seem to have a separate energy. Visitors might feel resistance or even be thrown out!!

This is quiet compared with the suit of armor that screams. The original owner was killed by a spear through the eye slit. He apparently died in March, and that is the month with the most screams....

If you are interested, psychic Liz Souza is now running the Ghost tours on Wednesdays.

Proposition 8: Decision by California's Supreme Court

2009-05-26T13:50:00.000-04:00

Its History:

This is the California Proposition that passed last November which prevents same sex couples from legally marrying in the state of California.

Get this, only 41.5 percent of Californians approved this ammendment to the state constitution. How was this done? It is because it was done according to the state initiative system. This was pointed out by rossl at DailyKos yesterday morning.

Now, it did pass with 52.3 percent of the vote, but only 79.4 percent of the voters turned out for the vote. So, 41.5 percent were able to change the state constitution. This is a shame. The United States Constitution is almost impossible to change, but California, as in several other states with an initiative system, makes it too easy to change the state constitution. By contrast, DailyKos points out, Nevada requires voters to approve any amendment change twice in successive elections. It is only made law after passing a second time.

Subsequently, the state Supreme Court began to look at the change, because they are the final arbiter of the meaning of the state Constitution, and Proposition 8 might logically conflict with the equal protection clause. Equal protection would require the Constitution to offer the same rights to same sex couples as it offers to hetero couples. Thus, Prop 8 and the equal protection clause can be seen to conflict with each other. This requires a decision by the state Supreme Court.

The Ruling Today:

A little while ago, the court handed down their 6-1 vote, rejecting the constitutional challenge to Proposition 8.

Their decision rested on the "narrow" conflict, redefining the word "marriage" to pertain only to opposite-sex couples. They held that Proposition 8 did not repeal any other aspect of same sex life. It left intact their right to choose a life partner, and their right to privacy, and due process. In this decision, the majority held that the scope of the issue was whether or not the people of California had the right to change the state Constitution under the provisions of the initiative process.

They unanimously agreed that those same-sex couples who married legally in California before November 5, 2008, would continue to have the advantages, disadvantages and rights of their marriages.

The Dissenting Opinion:

Justice Moreno explained that there is no "narrow" or "limited" exception to equal protection, adding that you can't promise equal treatment to some, or "almost equal" treatment. This is fundamentally different from truly equal treatment.

From the news release:

"Granting a disfavored minority only some of the rights enjoyed by the majority is fundamentally different from recognizing...that they must be granted all of those rights."

Justice Moreno further pointed out that this weakened the state Constitution's ability to protect any disfavored minority against the majority.

Isn't it interesting that this ruling would be announced today?

Obama's Choice: Sonia Sotomayor

2009-05-26T12:17:00.000-04:00

What a wonderfully qualified individual! Sonia Sotomayor (pronounced with a little flip at the final "r", not a rolling "r". ) was originally picked for the Federal Bench in New York State as federal district court judge by President George Herbert Walker Bush. She was then moved to the Federal Appelate Court by President William Clinton. She had started as an assistant District Attorney, and then worked for a private law firm with international corporate clients. She is highly respected as a centrist candidate who has great intellectual credentials and wide experience.

She went to school at Princeton University (graduating Summa Cum Laudae) and then to Yale University Law School where she was well respected and was made an editor of the Law Review.

Judge Sotomayor was the Judge in New York who ended the Baseball Strike. Good for her. She is a lifelong baseball fan who grew up within walking distance of Yankee Stadium. She can be found eating a New York hot dog, much as she would also be found in a trendy New York restaurant.

She will be the first Supreme Court nominee who grew up in a housing project. Her parents were both from Puerto Rican families. She decided when she was ten years old that she wanted to be a judge, after watching Perry Mason. -- I also watched Perry Mason, but I am not a lawyer. Oh well, opportunity missed for me! Good for her.

Her father died just after she developed juvenile diabetes (age 9), and her mother supported her and her brother for the rest of their lives. Her mom was a nurse, and often worked two jobs. Her brother is now a physician.

We have no way of knowing, but she might be more of a civil rights advocate than a corporate advocate. This would be fitting as, if confirmed, she would be replacement for Judge David Souter. He has been an advocate of human beings, the people, most of America.

For those who are worried about "making law from the bench" which is code for supporting abortion, since she is also Catholic she is unlikely to be undoing any moral law from the bench.

Video of the announcement can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hxgb-GAmf1M

Video of her acceptance can be found here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ax6I5U