Posts
Thankfully, Kansas City Cameron Lamb Riots Never Happened
43 minutes ago
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
100 homicides in KC this year?
According to Tony at TKC and Crime Scene KC, we're up to 99 homicides right now in Kansas City.
That stinks, of course.
And if we were really cynical, we'd start two pots.
The first one would be to figure out when/if we hit 100, the one closest to the time and day wins the pot.
The second pot would be to see when Mayor Funkhouser gets off his butt and attempts--or pretends to attempt--to do anything about the homicide rate in this city.
Only the second one would pass in the "good taste" department.
Links: http://blogs.kansascity.com/crime_scene/2010/12/kc-shooting-victim-dies-from-injuries.html
That stinks, of course.
And if we were really cynical, we'd start two pots.
The first one would be to figure out when/if we hit 100, the one closest to the time and day wins the pot.
The second pot would be to see when Mayor Funkhouser gets off his butt and attempts--or pretends to attempt--to do anything about the homicide rate in this city.
Only the second one would pass in the "good taste" department.
Links: http://blogs.kansascity.com/crime_scene/2010/12/kc-shooting-victim-dies-from-injuries.html
China and their extremely shrewd move yesterday in Cancun
Wow, if this were poker, China just played some magnificent cards in the "Cancun Climate-Change" game. Holy cow.
They're either playing a magnificent bluff they don't mean or they're really ready to get serious on climate change and carbon emission reduction. Either way, they're playing a great hand and they're winning at this game, if even only in the outward, public eye.
We--the US--should play cards this well.
This is what they did yesterday:
China shook up the stalled Cancun climate talks on Monday by offering to submit to a binding UN resolution on carbon emissions. It could be a breakthrough moment in the drive to limit global warming and climate change.
The US had said, up to this point, that they--we--wouldn’t budge until China agreed to external verification that they were meeting their obligations--something I assume our government figured was never going to happen.
Well, it just did.
China said they'd accept internal verifications.
But at the same time, China said they'd move on this if we--again, the US--would take the lead.
So now the ball is in our court.
And do you think there's any chance the Right-wing, the "Conservatives" ('Conservative", as in "conservation", from the root word, "conserve"--that's rich) and the Republicans--those supporters of all thing polluting and corporate--are going to allow any "cap and trade" program to reduce carbon emissions and pollution?
Not a chance.
I tell you, the Chinese just did themselves a huge favor here. They come out looking like the good guys on this whole issue. They come out WAY ahead on this.
And the US looks like the polluting, carbon-emitting, stalling chumps, left with all the bad cards.
Suckers.
Links: http://redgreenandblue.org/2010/12/07/china-makes-game-changing-carbon-offer-at-cancun-climate-talks/
They're either playing a magnificent bluff they don't mean or they're really ready to get serious on climate change and carbon emission reduction. Either way, they're playing a great hand and they're winning at this game, if even only in the outward, public eye.
We--the US--should play cards this well.
This is what they did yesterday:
China shook up the stalled Cancun climate talks on Monday by offering to submit to a binding UN resolution on carbon emissions. It could be a breakthrough moment in the drive to limit global warming and climate change.
The US had said, up to this point, that they--we--wouldn’t budge until China agreed to external verification that they were meeting their obligations--something I assume our government figured was never going to happen.
Well, it just did.
China said they'd accept internal verifications.
But at the same time, China said they'd move on this if we--again, the US--would take the lead.
So now the ball is in our court.
And do you think there's any chance the Right-wing, the "Conservatives" ('Conservative", as in "conservation", from the root word, "conserve"--that's rich) and the Republicans--those supporters of all thing polluting and corporate--are going to allow any "cap and trade" program to reduce carbon emissions and pollution?
Not a chance.
I tell you, the Chinese just did themselves a huge favor here. They come out looking like the good guys on this whole issue. They come out WAY ahead on this.
And the US looks like the polluting, carbon-emitting, stalling chumps, left with all the bad cards.
Suckers.
Links: http://redgreenandblue.org/2010/12/07/china-makes-game-changing-carbon-offer-at-cancun-climate-talks/
In fairness, then: great job today, Jabulani
A few days ago, I wrote my second note here, expressing disappointment in the new "Central Standard" show on KCUR 89.3 FM radio (10 am M,T,W, Th).
After listening today as I crossed town for work, I have to say, this interview with The Kansas City Star's cartoonist Lee Judge was so much of an improvement, it was great to listen to. (Good on ya', Mr. Leffall).
Now, that said, that's it--I'm not giving any further "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" on this show. I don't pretend I'm any arbiter of taste, good or bad, for the city, area or the world. I just mentioned, in passing, how I didn't think the show was working or was off to a good start.
That said, I consider the issue closed. It's not like Mr. Leffall or KCUR, for that matter, need me or my input. (Just my annual contributions).
Link: http://www.kcur.org/centralstandard.html#Wednesday
If you didn't hear the show today but still want to, hopefully you know you can go online at KCUR and listen to their archives.
Enjoy that great, late Autumn weather y'all.
After listening today as I crossed town for work, I have to say, this interview with The Kansas City Star's cartoonist Lee Judge was so much of an improvement, it was great to listen to. (Good on ya', Mr. Leffall).
Now, that said, that's it--I'm not giving any further "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" on this show. I don't pretend I'm any arbiter of taste, good or bad, for the city, area or the world. I just mentioned, in passing, how I didn't think the show was working or was off to a good start.
That said, I consider the issue closed. It's not like Mr. Leffall or KCUR, for that matter, need me or my input. (Just my annual contributions).
Link: http://www.kcur.org/centralstandard.html#Wednesday
If you didn't hear the show today but still want to, hopefully you know you can go online at KCUR and listen to their archives.
Enjoy that great, late Autumn weather y'all.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Quote of the day--on rich vs. everyone else in America
"In my view, it is a moral outrage that at a time when this country has a $13.8 trillion national debt, a collapsing middle class and a growing gap between the very rich and everybody else that the Republicans would deny extended unemployment benefits to 2 million workers who are desperately struggling to pay their bills and maintain their dignity. It is also beyond comprehension that the Republicans would hold hostage the entire middle class of this country so that millionaires and billionaires would receive huge tax breaks. In my view, that is not what this country is about and it is not what the American people want to see. Our job is to save the disappearing middle class, not lower taxes for people who are already extraordinarily wealthy and increase the national debt that our children and grandchildren would have to pay.
"The immediate political task in front of us is to rally the American people so that in the next several weeks we can find at least a few Republicans who will join us in saying no to increasing the deficit by giving tax breaks to the wealthy and no to holding the unemployed and the middle class hostage.
"I believe that we have the American people on our side on this issue. My office, and I come from a small state, has received more than 600 calls today, 99 percent of them in opposition to this so-called compromise that the president negotiated with the Republicans.
"I will do everything in my power to stand up for the American middle class and defeat this agreement." --Senator Bernie Sanders, (D, VT)
Thank you, Senator Sanders. At least there is one person willing to stand up for the people without all the money in the US.
The Funk fails to lead again/some more
Yesterday, as I wrote here earlier, our not-so-illustrious Mayor Mark "the Funk" Funkhouser was on KCUR's "Central Standard" radio program. He told of what he did during his first tenure ("got our economic/financial house in order", paraphrased) and said what he would want to do in a second term if--God forbid--he were re-elected.
The Star points out today--very well--in an op/ed piece on the "E tax" mess we and St. Louis are in, that as soon as the vote on the Prop A/E-tax was done, St. Louis' mayor jumped all over it and said they were going to form a business/government alliance to defeat it.
Our own mayor?
To date, no word of coordination with anyone.
Instead, again, as the Star points out: "...Mayor Mark Funkhouser hasn't provided any real leadership to rally different groups behind the cause. Instead, he's feuded for months with the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce, creating a deep schism with business leaders."
So typical of this mayor. Instead of working WITH people--nearly anyone--he virtually always fights them. I've said, time and again, I can't imagine who this mayor works WITH. It's him and Gloria against the world. And they seem to like it that way.
So since the mayor isn't leading on this, people from the chamber, the Civic Council of Greater Kansas City, the Greater Kansas City AFL-CIO, the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 42 and the Heavy Constructors Association of Greater Kansas City have all decided to come together, wisely, and fight this E-tax vote coming up.
Thank goodness someone's leading in town.
We sure aren't going to get it from Mayor Mark Funkhouser.
Link: http://www.kansascity.com/2010/12/06/2502435/the-stars-editorial-riding-to.html
The Star points out today--very well--in an op/ed piece on the "E tax" mess we and St. Louis are in, that as soon as the vote on the Prop A/E-tax was done, St. Louis' mayor jumped all over it and said they were going to form a business/government alliance to defeat it.
Our own mayor?
To date, no word of coordination with anyone.
Instead, again, as the Star points out: "...Mayor Mark Funkhouser hasn't provided any real leadership to rally different groups behind the cause. Instead, he's feuded for months with the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce, creating a deep schism with business leaders."
So typical of this mayor. Instead of working WITH people--nearly anyone--he virtually always fights them. I've said, time and again, I can't imagine who this mayor works WITH. It's him and Gloria against the world. And they seem to like it that way.
So since the mayor isn't leading on this, people from the chamber, the Civic Council of Greater Kansas City, the Greater Kansas City AFL-CIO, the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 42 and the Heavy Constructors Association of Greater Kansas City have all decided to come together, wisely, and fight this E-tax vote coming up.
Thank goodness someone's leading in town.
We sure aren't going to get it from Mayor Mark Funkhouser.
Link: http://www.kansascity.com/2010/12/06/2502435/the-stars-editorial-riding-to.html
Monday, December 6, 2010
Guest post: "You can't handle the truth!"
America: The Grim Truth
Americans, I have some bad news for you:
You have the worst quality of life in the developed world - by a wide margin.
If you had any idea of how people really lived in Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and many parts of Asia, you'd be rioting in the streets calling for a better life. In fact, the average Australian or Singaporean taxi driver has a much better standard of living than the typical American white-collar worker.
I know this because I am an American, and I escaped from the prison you call home.
I have lived all around the world, in wealthy countries and poor ones, and there is only one country I would never consider living in again: The United States of America. The mere thought of it fills me with dread.
Consider this: you are the only people in the developed world without a single-payer health system. Everyone in Western Europe, Japan, Canada, Australia, Singapore and New Zealand has a single-payer system. If they get sick, they can devote all their energies to getting well. If you get sick, you have to battle two things at once: your illness and the fear of financial ruin. Millions of Americans go bankrupt every year due to medical bills, and tens of thousands die each year because they have no insurance or insufficient insurance. And don't believe for a second that rot about America having the world's best medical care or the shortest waiting lists: I've been to hospitals in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Singapore, and Thailand, and every one was better than the "good" hospital I used to go to back home. The waits were shorter, the facilities more comfortable, and the doctors just as good.
This is ironic, because you need a good health system more than anyone else in the world. Why? Because your lifestyle is almost designed to make you sick.
Let's start with your diet: Much of the beef you eat has been exposed to fecal matter in processing. Your chicken is contaminated with salmonella. Your stock animals and poultry are pumped full of growth hormones and antibiotics. In most other countries, the government would act to protect consumers from this sort of thing; in the United States, the government is bought off by industry to prevent any effective regulations or inspections. In a few years, the majority of all the produce for sale in the United States will be from genetically modified crops, thanks to the cozy relationship between Monsanto Corporation and the United States government. Worse still, due to the vast quantities of high-fructose corn syrup Americans consume, fully one-third of children born in the United States today will be diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes at some point in their lives.
Of course, it's not just the food that's killing you, it's the drugs. If you show any sign of life when you're young, they'll put you on Ritalin. Then, when you get old enough to take a good look around, you'll get depressed, so they'll give you Prozac. If you're a man, this will render you chemically impotent, so you'll need Viagra to get it up. Meanwhile, your steady diet of trans-fat-laden food is guaranteed to give you high cholesterol, so you'll get a prescription for Lipitor. Finally, at the end of the day, you'll lay awake at night worrying about losing your health plan, so you'll need Lunesta to go to sleep.
With a diet guaranteed to make you sick and a health system designed to make sure you stay that way, what you really need is a long vacation somewhere. Unfortunately, you probably can't take one. I'll let you in on little secret: if you go to the beaches of Thailand, the mountains of Nepal, or the coral reefs of Australia, you'll probably be the only American in sight. And you'll be surrounded crowds of happy Germans, French, Italians, Israelis, Scandinavians and wealthy Asians. Why? Because they're paid well enough to afford to visit these places AND they can take vacations long enough to do so. Even if you could scrape together enough money to go to one of these incredible places, by the time you recovered from your jetlag, it would be time to get on a plane and rush back to your job.
If you think I'm making this up, check the stats on average annual vacation days by country:
Finland: 44
Italy: 42
France: 39
Germany: 35
UK: 25
Japan: 18
USA: 12
The fact is, they work you like dogs in the United States. This should come as no surprise: the United States never got away from the plantation/sweat shop labor model and any real labor movement was brutally suppressed. Unless you happen to be a member of the ownership class, your options are pretty much limited to barely surviving on service-sector wages or playing musical chairs for a spot in a cubicle (a spot that will be outsourced to India next week anyway). The very best you can hope for is to get a professional degree and then milk the system for a slice of the middle-class pie. And even those who claw their way into the middle class are but one illness or job loss away from poverty. Your jobs aren't secure. Your company has no loyalty to you. They'll play you off against your coworkers for as long as it suits them, then they'll get rid of you.
Of course, you don't have any choice in the matter: the system is designed this way. In most countries in the developed world, higher education is either free or heavily subsidized; in the United States, a university degree can set you back over US$100,000. Thus, you enter the working world with a crushing debt. Forget about taking a year off to travel the world and find yourself - you've got to start working or watch your credit rating plummet.
If you're "lucky," you might even land a job good enough to qualify you for a home loan. And then you'll spend half your working life just paying the interest on the loan - welcome to the world of American debt slavery. America has the illusion of great wealth because there's a lot of "stuff" around, but who really owns it? In real terms, the average American is poorer than the poorest ghetto dweller in Manila, because at least they have no debts. If they want to pack up and leave, they can; if you want to leave, you can't, because you've got debts to pay.
All this begs the question: Why would anyone put up with this? Ask any American and you'll get the same answer: because America is the freest country on earth. If you believe this, I've got some more bad news for you: America is actually among the least free countries on earth. Your piss is tested, your emails and phone calls are monitored, your medical records are gathered, and you are never more than one stray comment away from writhing on the ground with two Taser prongs in your ass.
And that's just physical freedom. Mentally, you are truly imprisoned. You don't even know the degree to which you are tormented by fears of medical bankruptcy, job loss, homelessness and violent crime because you've never lived in a country where there is no need to worry about such things.
But it goes much deeper than mere surveillance and anxiety. The fact is, you are not free because your country has been taken over and occupied by another government. Fully 70% of your tax dollars go to the Pentagon, and the Pentagon is the real government of the United States. You are required under pain of death to pay taxes to this occupying government. If you're from the less fortunate classes, you are also required to serve and die in their endless wars, or send your sons and daughters to do so. You have no choice in the matter: there is a socio-economic draft system in the United States that provides a steady stream of cannon fodder for the military.
If you call a life of surveillance, anxiety and ceaseless toil in the service of a government you didn't elect "freedom," then you and I have a very different idea of what that word means.
If there was some chance that the country could be changed, there might be reason for hope. But can you honestly look around and conclude that anything is going to change? Where would the change come from? The people? Take a good look at your compatriots: the working class in the United States has been brutally propagandized by jackals like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity. Members of the working class have been taught to lick the boots of their masters and then bend over for another kick in the ass. They've got these people so well trained that they'll take up arms against the other half of the working class as soon as their masters give the word.
If the people cannot make a change, how about the media? Not a chance. From Fox News to the New York Times, the mass media in the United States is nothing but the public relations wing of the corporatocracy, primarily the military industrial complex. At least the citizens of the former Soviet Union knew that their news was bullshit. In America, you grow up thinking you've got a free media, which makes the propaganda doubly effective. If you don't think American media is mere corporate propaganda, ask yourself the following question: have you ever heard a major American news outlet suggest that the country could fund a single-payer health system by cutting military spending?
If change can't come from the people or the media, the only other potential source of change would be the politicians. Unfortunately, the American political process is among the most corrupt in the world. In every country on earth, one expects politicians to take bribes from the rich. But this generally happens in secret, behind the closed doors of their elite clubs. In the United States, this sort of political corruption is done in broad daylight, as part of legal, accepted, standard operating procedure. In the United States, they merely call these bribes campaign donations, political action committees and lobbyists. One can no more expect the politicians to change this system than one can expect a man to take an axe and chop his own legs out from underneath him.
No, the United States of America is not going to change for the better. The only change will be for the worse. And when I say worse, I mean much worse. As we speak, the economic system that sustained the country during the post-war years is collapsing. The United States maxed out its "credit card" sometime in 2008 and now its lenders, starting with China, are in the process of laying the foundations for a new monetary system to replace the Anglo-American "petro-dollar" system. As soon as there is a viable alternative to the US dollar, the greenback will sink like a stone.
While the United States was running up crushing levels of debt, it was also busy shipping its manufacturing jobs and white-collar jobs overseas, and letting its infrastructure fall to pieces. Meanwhile, Asian and European countries were investing in education, infrastructure and raw materials. Even if the United States tried to rebuild a real economy (as opposed to a service/financial economy) do you think American workers would ever be able to compete with the workers of China or Europe? Have you ever seen a Japanese or German factory? Have you ever met a Singaporean or Chinese worker?
There are only two possible futures facing the United States, and neither one is pretty. The best case is a slow but orderly decline - essentially a continuation of what's been happening for the last two decades. Wages will drop, unemployment will rise, Medicare and Social Security benefits will be slashed, the currency will decline in value, and the disparity of wealth will spiral out of control until the United States starts to resemble Mexico or the Philippines - tiny islands of wealth surrounded by great poverty (the country is already halfway there).
Equally likely is a sudden collapse, perhaps brought about by a rapid flight from the US dollar by creditor nations like China, Japan, Korea and the OPEC nations. A related possibility would be a default by the United States government on its vast debt. One look at the financial balance sheet of the US government should convince you how likely this is: governmental spending is skyrocketing and tax receipts are plummeting - something has to give. If either of these scenarios plays out, the resulting depression will make the present recession look like a walk in the park.
Whether the collapse is gradual or gut-wrenchingly sudden, the results will be chaos, civil strife and fascism. Let's face it: the United States is like the former Yugoslavia - a collection of mutually antagonistic cultures united in name only. You've got your own version of the Taliban: right-wing Christian fundamentalists who actively loathe the idea of secular Constitutional government. You've got a vast intellectual underclass that has spent the last few decades soaking up Fox News and talk radio propaganda, eager to blame the collapse on Democrats, gays and immigrants. You've got a ruthless ownership class that will use all the means at its disposal to protect its wealth from the starving masses.
On top of all that you've got vast factory farms, sprawling suburbs and a truck-based shipping system, all of it entirely dependent on oil that is about to become completely unaffordable. And you've got guns. Lots of guns. In short: the United States is about to become a very unwholesome place to be.
Right now, the government is building fences and walls along its northern and southern borders. Right now, the government is working on a national ID system (soon to be fitted with biometric features). Right now, the government is building a surveillance state so extensive that they will be able to follow your every move, online, in the street and across borders. If you think this is just to protect you from "terrorists," then you're sadly mistaken. Once the shit really hits the fan, do you really think you'll just be able to jump into the old station wagon, drive across the Canadian border and spend the rest of your days fishing and drinking Molson? No, the government is going to lock the place down. They don't want their tax base escaping. They don't want their "recruits" escaping. They don't want YOU escaping.
I am not writing this to scare you. I write this to you as a friend. If you are able to read and understand what I've written here, then you are a member of a small minority in the United States. You are a minority in a country that has no place for you.
So what should you do?
You should leave the United States of America.
If you're young, you've got plenty of choices: you can teach English in the Middle East, Asia or Europe. Or you can go to university or graduate school abroad and start building skills that will qualify you for a work visa. If you've already got some real work skills, you can apply to emigrate to any number of countries as a skilled immigrant. If you are older and you've got some savings, you can retire to a place like Costa Rica or the Philippines. If you can't qualify for a work, student or retirement visa, don't let that stop you - travel on a tourist visa to a country that appeals to you and talk to the expats you meet there. Whatever you do, go speak to an immigration lawyer as soon as you can. Find out exactly how to get on a path that will lead to permanent residence and eventually citizenship in the country of your choice.
You will not be alone. There are millions of Americans just like me living outside the United States. Living lives much more fulfilling, peaceful, free and abundant than we ever could have attained back home. Some of us happened upon these lives by accident - we tried a year abroad and found that we liked it - others made a conscious decision to pack up and leave for good. You'll find us in Canada, all over Europe, in many parts of Asia, in Australia and New Zealand, and in most other countries of the globe. Do we miss our friends and family? Yes. Do we occasionally miss aspects of our former country? Yes. Do we plan on ever living again in the United States? Never. And those of us with permanent residence or citizenship can sponsor family members from back home for long-term visas in our adopted countries.
In closing, I want to remind you of something: unless you are an American Indian or a descendant of slaves, at some point your ancestors chose to leave their homeland in search of a better life. They weren't traitors and they weren't bad people, they just wanted a better life for themselves and their families. Isn't it time that you continue their journey?
Food for thought, eh?
Link to original post:
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/206251-America-The-Grim-Truth
Americans, I have some bad news for you:
You have the worst quality of life in the developed world - by a wide margin.
If you had any idea of how people really lived in Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and many parts of Asia, you'd be rioting in the streets calling for a better life. In fact, the average Australian or Singaporean taxi driver has a much better standard of living than the typical American white-collar worker.
I know this because I am an American, and I escaped from the prison you call home.
I have lived all around the world, in wealthy countries and poor ones, and there is only one country I would never consider living in again: The United States of America. The mere thought of it fills me with dread.
Consider this: you are the only people in the developed world without a single-payer health system. Everyone in Western Europe, Japan, Canada, Australia, Singapore and New Zealand has a single-payer system. If they get sick, they can devote all their energies to getting well. If you get sick, you have to battle two things at once: your illness and the fear of financial ruin. Millions of Americans go bankrupt every year due to medical bills, and tens of thousands die each year because they have no insurance or insufficient insurance. And don't believe for a second that rot about America having the world's best medical care or the shortest waiting lists: I've been to hospitals in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Singapore, and Thailand, and every one was better than the "good" hospital I used to go to back home. The waits were shorter, the facilities more comfortable, and the doctors just as good.
This is ironic, because you need a good health system more than anyone else in the world. Why? Because your lifestyle is almost designed to make you sick.
Let's start with your diet: Much of the beef you eat has been exposed to fecal matter in processing. Your chicken is contaminated with salmonella. Your stock animals and poultry are pumped full of growth hormones and antibiotics. In most other countries, the government would act to protect consumers from this sort of thing; in the United States, the government is bought off by industry to prevent any effective regulations or inspections. In a few years, the majority of all the produce for sale in the United States will be from genetically modified crops, thanks to the cozy relationship between Monsanto Corporation and the United States government. Worse still, due to the vast quantities of high-fructose corn syrup Americans consume, fully one-third of children born in the United States today will be diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes at some point in their lives.
Of course, it's not just the food that's killing you, it's the drugs. If you show any sign of life when you're young, they'll put you on Ritalin. Then, when you get old enough to take a good look around, you'll get depressed, so they'll give you Prozac. If you're a man, this will render you chemically impotent, so you'll need Viagra to get it up. Meanwhile, your steady diet of trans-fat-laden food is guaranteed to give you high cholesterol, so you'll get a prescription for Lipitor. Finally, at the end of the day, you'll lay awake at night worrying about losing your health plan, so you'll need Lunesta to go to sleep.
With a diet guaranteed to make you sick and a health system designed to make sure you stay that way, what you really need is a long vacation somewhere. Unfortunately, you probably can't take one. I'll let you in on little secret: if you go to the beaches of Thailand, the mountains of Nepal, or the coral reefs of Australia, you'll probably be the only American in sight. And you'll be surrounded crowds of happy Germans, French, Italians, Israelis, Scandinavians and wealthy Asians. Why? Because they're paid well enough to afford to visit these places AND they can take vacations long enough to do so. Even if you could scrape together enough money to go to one of these incredible places, by the time you recovered from your jetlag, it would be time to get on a plane and rush back to your job.
If you think I'm making this up, check the stats on average annual vacation days by country:
Finland: 44
Italy: 42
France: 39
Germany: 35
UK: 25
Japan: 18
USA: 12
The fact is, they work you like dogs in the United States. This should come as no surprise: the United States never got away from the plantation/sweat shop labor model and any real labor movement was brutally suppressed. Unless you happen to be a member of the ownership class, your options are pretty much limited to barely surviving on service-sector wages or playing musical chairs for a spot in a cubicle (a spot that will be outsourced to India next week anyway). The very best you can hope for is to get a professional degree and then milk the system for a slice of the middle-class pie. And even those who claw their way into the middle class are but one illness or job loss away from poverty. Your jobs aren't secure. Your company has no loyalty to you. They'll play you off against your coworkers for as long as it suits them, then they'll get rid of you.
Of course, you don't have any choice in the matter: the system is designed this way. In most countries in the developed world, higher education is either free or heavily subsidized; in the United States, a university degree can set you back over US$100,000. Thus, you enter the working world with a crushing debt. Forget about taking a year off to travel the world and find yourself - you've got to start working or watch your credit rating plummet.
If you're "lucky," you might even land a job good enough to qualify you for a home loan. And then you'll spend half your working life just paying the interest on the loan - welcome to the world of American debt slavery. America has the illusion of great wealth because there's a lot of "stuff" around, but who really owns it? In real terms, the average American is poorer than the poorest ghetto dweller in Manila, because at least they have no debts. If they want to pack up and leave, they can; if you want to leave, you can't, because you've got debts to pay.
All this begs the question: Why would anyone put up with this? Ask any American and you'll get the same answer: because America is the freest country on earth. If you believe this, I've got some more bad news for you: America is actually among the least free countries on earth. Your piss is tested, your emails and phone calls are monitored, your medical records are gathered, and you are never more than one stray comment away from writhing on the ground with two Taser prongs in your ass.
And that's just physical freedom. Mentally, you are truly imprisoned. You don't even know the degree to which you are tormented by fears of medical bankruptcy, job loss, homelessness and violent crime because you've never lived in a country where there is no need to worry about such things.
But it goes much deeper than mere surveillance and anxiety. The fact is, you are not free because your country has been taken over and occupied by another government. Fully 70% of your tax dollars go to the Pentagon, and the Pentagon is the real government of the United States. You are required under pain of death to pay taxes to this occupying government. If you're from the less fortunate classes, you are also required to serve and die in their endless wars, or send your sons and daughters to do so. You have no choice in the matter: there is a socio-economic draft system in the United States that provides a steady stream of cannon fodder for the military.
If you call a life of surveillance, anxiety and ceaseless toil in the service of a government you didn't elect "freedom," then you and I have a very different idea of what that word means.
If there was some chance that the country could be changed, there might be reason for hope. But can you honestly look around and conclude that anything is going to change? Where would the change come from? The people? Take a good look at your compatriots: the working class in the United States has been brutally propagandized by jackals like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity. Members of the working class have been taught to lick the boots of their masters and then bend over for another kick in the ass. They've got these people so well trained that they'll take up arms against the other half of the working class as soon as their masters give the word.
If the people cannot make a change, how about the media? Not a chance. From Fox News to the New York Times, the mass media in the United States is nothing but the public relations wing of the corporatocracy, primarily the military industrial complex. At least the citizens of the former Soviet Union knew that their news was bullshit. In America, you grow up thinking you've got a free media, which makes the propaganda doubly effective. If you don't think American media is mere corporate propaganda, ask yourself the following question: have you ever heard a major American news outlet suggest that the country could fund a single-payer health system by cutting military spending?
If change can't come from the people or the media, the only other potential source of change would be the politicians. Unfortunately, the American political process is among the most corrupt in the world. In every country on earth, one expects politicians to take bribes from the rich. But this generally happens in secret, behind the closed doors of their elite clubs. In the United States, this sort of political corruption is done in broad daylight, as part of legal, accepted, standard operating procedure. In the United States, they merely call these bribes campaign donations, political action committees and lobbyists. One can no more expect the politicians to change this system than one can expect a man to take an axe and chop his own legs out from underneath him.
No, the United States of America is not going to change for the better. The only change will be for the worse. And when I say worse, I mean much worse. As we speak, the economic system that sustained the country during the post-war years is collapsing. The United States maxed out its "credit card" sometime in 2008 and now its lenders, starting with China, are in the process of laying the foundations for a new monetary system to replace the Anglo-American "petro-dollar" system. As soon as there is a viable alternative to the US dollar, the greenback will sink like a stone.
While the United States was running up crushing levels of debt, it was also busy shipping its manufacturing jobs and white-collar jobs overseas, and letting its infrastructure fall to pieces. Meanwhile, Asian and European countries were investing in education, infrastructure and raw materials. Even if the United States tried to rebuild a real economy (as opposed to a service/financial economy) do you think American workers would ever be able to compete with the workers of China or Europe? Have you ever seen a Japanese or German factory? Have you ever met a Singaporean or Chinese worker?
There are only two possible futures facing the United States, and neither one is pretty. The best case is a slow but orderly decline - essentially a continuation of what's been happening for the last two decades. Wages will drop, unemployment will rise, Medicare and Social Security benefits will be slashed, the currency will decline in value, and the disparity of wealth will spiral out of control until the United States starts to resemble Mexico or the Philippines - tiny islands of wealth surrounded by great poverty (the country is already halfway there).
Equally likely is a sudden collapse, perhaps brought about by a rapid flight from the US dollar by creditor nations like China, Japan, Korea and the OPEC nations. A related possibility would be a default by the United States government on its vast debt. One look at the financial balance sheet of the US government should convince you how likely this is: governmental spending is skyrocketing and tax receipts are plummeting - something has to give. If either of these scenarios plays out, the resulting depression will make the present recession look like a walk in the park.
Whether the collapse is gradual or gut-wrenchingly sudden, the results will be chaos, civil strife and fascism. Let's face it: the United States is like the former Yugoslavia - a collection of mutually antagonistic cultures united in name only. You've got your own version of the Taliban: right-wing Christian fundamentalists who actively loathe the idea of secular Constitutional government. You've got a vast intellectual underclass that has spent the last few decades soaking up Fox News and talk radio propaganda, eager to blame the collapse on Democrats, gays and immigrants. You've got a ruthless ownership class that will use all the means at its disposal to protect its wealth from the starving masses.
On top of all that you've got vast factory farms, sprawling suburbs and a truck-based shipping system, all of it entirely dependent on oil that is about to become completely unaffordable. And you've got guns. Lots of guns. In short: the United States is about to become a very unwholesome place to be.
Right now, the government is building fences and walls along its northern and southern borders. Right now, the government is working on a national ID system (soon to be fitted with biometric features). Right now, the government is building a surveillance state so extensive that they will be able to follow your every move, online, in the street and across borders. If you think this is just to protect you from "terrorists," then you're sadly mistaken. Once the shit really hits the fan, do you really think you'll just be able to jump into the old station wagon, drive across the Canadian border and spend the rest of your days fishing and drinking Molson? No, the government is going to lock the place down. They don't want their tax base escaping. They don't want their "recruits" escaping. They don't want YOU escaping.
I am not writing this to scare you. I write this to you as a friend. If you are able to read and understand what I've written here, then you are a member of a small minority in the United States. You are a minority in a country that has no place for you.
So what should you do?
You should leave the United States of America.
If you're young, you've got plenty of choices: you can teach English in the Middle East, Asia or Europe. Or you can go to university or graduate school abroad and start building skills that will qualify you for a work visa. If you've already got some real work skills, you can apply to emigrate to any number of countries as a skilled immigrant. If you are older and you've got some savings, you can retire to a place like Costa Rica or the Philippines. If you can't qualify for a work, student or retirement visa, don't let that stop you - travel on a tourist visa to a country that appeals to you and talk to the expats you meet there. Whatever you do, go speak to an immigration lawyer as soon as you can. Find out exactly how to get on a path that will lead to permanent residence and eventually citizenship in the country of your choice.
You will not be alone. There are millions of Americans just like me living outside the United States. Living lives much more fulfilling, peaceful, free and abundant than we ever could have attained back home. Some of us happened upon these lives by accident - we tried a year abroad and found that we liked it - others made a conscious decision to pack up and leave for good. You'll find us in Canada, all over Europe, in many parts of Asia, in Australia and New Zealand, and in most other countries of the globe. Do we miss our friends and family? Yes. Do we occasionally miss aspects of our former country? Yes. Do we plan on ever living again in the United States? Never. And those of us with permanent residence or citizenship can sponsor family members from back home for long-term visas in our adopted countries.
In closing, I want to remind you of something: unless you are an American Indian or a descendant of slaves, at some point your ancestors chose to leave their homeland in search of a better life. They weren't traitors and they weren't bad people, they just wanted a better life for themselves and their families. Isn't it time that you continue their journey?
Food for thought, eh?
Link to original post:
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/206251-America-The-Grim-Truth
Jabulani Le-fail
I'm sorry, I keep trying to listen to and give Mr. Jabulani Feffal, the host of KCUR FM's "Central Standard" radio show that replaced "The Walt Bodine Show" a chance but it just isn't working for me.
I'll keep trying, too, just to be fair, but it's difficult, at least.
Today, Mr. Lefall had on our illustrious Mayor Mark Funkhouser and unfortunately did what too many media people do--in this case, he had young students throwing softball questions at the mayor. What wasn't mushy was painful.
At one point, the mayor pointed out all the millions and billions of dollars we owe as a city, going forward. Somewhat naturally, that got me to thinking about the 1,000 room hotel the city is trying to get built here in town as a way to build convention business.
"If we can't afford the billions of dollars for sewers--or if we can, it's going to be difficult, at least--how can we even think about building a 1,000 room hotel?" is the question I wanted to ask.
So I dialed.
And I told the young lady who took my call what my name and city were, along with my question.
Unbelievably, she said that they had already touched on a "shrinking the city", physically, question so she didn't feel the question pertinent.
WTH?
Listen, if the mayor is lamenting our big expenses to come in the near future but everyone down at City Hall is also trying to come up with a big hotel for us to finance, doesn't that seem to fit right in, right then, as a related questioin?
Nope, not to this high-voiced young lady. No, sir, we'll take some other question.
The questioners then went on to ask the mayor what super hero he thought he would like to be, yes they did.
Ai-yi-yi.
I know that's a "behind the scenes" example there at the station but I have to say, to go from someone who knew the city and its history--that is Walt Bodine--to someone we have to get to know and get familiar with, well, I know there's going to be transition and difficulty and everyone has to get used to each other but I have to say, much as I want KCUR and "Central Standard" to be successful, this CS show doesn't--yet--seem to be working. Today's overall show was alternately either empty or painful. (Don't think I wanted Walt to go on forever, either. I had already suggested here that Steve Kraske should maybe take over the spot, which, of course, didn't happen.)
I hope they can get it worked out so it's worth listening to soon.
It sure isn't working for this listener.
Link: http://www.kcur.org/centralstandard.html
I'll keep trying, too, just to be fair, but it's difficult, at least.
Today, Mr. Lefall had on our illustrious Mayor Mark Funkhouser and unfortunately did what too many media people do--in this case, he had young students throwing softball questions at the mayor. What wasn't mushy was painful.
At one point, the mayor pointed out all the millions and billions of dollars we owe as a city, going forward. Somewhat naturally, that got me to thinking about the 1,000 room hotel the city is trying to get built here in town as a way to build convention business.
"If we can't afford the billions of dollars for sewers--or if we can, it's going to be difficult, at least--how can we even think about building a 1,000 room hotel?" is the question I wanted to ask.
So I dialed.
And I told the young lady who took my call what my name and city were, along with my question.
Unbelievably, she said that they had already touched on a "shrinking the city", physically, question so she didn't feel the question pertinent.
WTH?
Listen, if the mayor is lamenting our big expenses to come in the near future but everyone down at City Hall is also trying to come up with a big hotel for us to finance, doesn't that seem to fit right in, right then, as a related questioin?
Nope, not to this high-voiced young lady. No, sir, we'll take some other question.
The questioners then went on to ask the mayor what super hero he thought he would like to be, yes they did.
Ai-yi-yi.
I know that's a "behind the scenes" example there at the station but I have to say, to go from someone who knew the city and its history--that is Walt Bodine--to someone we have to get to know and get familiar with, well, I know there's going to be transition and difficulty and everyone has to get used to each other but I have to say, much as I want KCUR and "Central Standard" to be successful, this CS show doesn't--yet--seem to be working. Today's overall show was alternately either empty or painful. (Don't think I wanted Walt to go on forever, either. I had already suggested here that Steve Kraske should maybe take over the spot, which, of course, didn't happen.)
I hope they can get it worked out so it's worth listening to soon.
It sure isn't working for this listener.
Link: http://www.kcur.org/centralstandard.html
Still don't believe in climate change, eh?
For any and all who don't believe there is "climate change" happening now and/or that the glaciers and ice caps are melting, this one's for you:
If an island state vanishes, is it still a nation?
What CAN our government do?
After that last nightmare of an administration in the White House that couldn't run anything (FEMA, EPA, etc.) and didn't want to, it got to seeming as though our government never did work and never would again.
Of course, that's patently not true--our government used to work, if even mostly.
But news today, check it out:
Government can’t print money properly
You know, all we want is a government that works. Yes, we want a smaller government and we want a government that costs and taxes us less but right off the bat, that government should be able to do what we set it up for.
And check out that number---they printed more than a billion of these things before they figured out they won't work?
Come on, guys. Could someone pay attention to some detail here?
Just so we know they've wasted our tax dollars--some more, check out this beauty:
The flawed bills, which cost around $120 million to print, will have to burned.
The thing is, this fits right in with the fact that we need all the chuckleheads who've been voted into office--or any and all political parties--to go back to Washington, work together and do good things for all of the citizens of the country.
To heck with the respective political party, to heck with putting their own needs first--we need those people to go back to Washington and do what's good for the country, period.
There are a whole lotta' people pretty upset out here.
And that's putting it--very--nicely. A lot of us are disgusted with the way government and government officials don't seem to be able to make things work.
You're wearing our patience, ladies and gentlemen.
Link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20101206/us_yblog_thelookout/government-cant-print-money-properly/print
Of course, that's patently not true--our government used to work, if even mostly.
But news today, check it out:
Government can’t print money properly
Because of a problem with the presses, the federal government has shut down production of its flashy new $100 bills, and has quarantined more than 1 billion of them -- more than 10 percent of all existing U.S. cash -- in a vault in Fort Worth, Texas, reports CNBC.
"There is something drastically wrong here," one source told CNBC. "The frustration level is off the charts."
You know, all we want is a government that works. Yes, we want a smaller government and we want a government that costs and taxes us less but right off the bat, that government should be able to do what we set it up for.
And check out that number---they printed more than a billion of these things before they figured out they won't work?
Come on, guys. Could someone pay attention to some detail here?
Just so we know they've wasted our tax dollars--some more, check out this beauty:
The flawed bills, which cost around $120 million to print, will have to burned.
The thing is, this fits right in with the fact that we need all the chuckleheads who've been voted into office--or any and all political parties--to go back to Washington, work together and do good things for all of the citizens of the country.
To heck with the respective political party, to heck with putting their own needs first--we need those people to go back to Washington and do what's good for the country, period.
There are a whole lotta' people pretty upset out here.
And that's putting it--very--nicely. A lot of us are disgusted with the way government and government officials don't seem to be able to make things work.
You're wearing our patience, ladies and gentlemen.
Link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20101206/us_yblog_thelookout/government-cant-print-money-properly/print
A giveaway to the rich, from the Republicans and Right Wing
Republicans and the Republican Party: For the wealthy in America
Phones and computers: the merge
If it hasn't already occurred to you, telephones and computers are going to merge one day. And very soon. Sooner than you'd think. And more than they already have.
Already, people are getting emails on their phones and watching videos on those little screens.
At the same time, some phone service is certainly already available on our computers and have been for some time.
With the iPad, it's obvious the two will be brought together even sooner.
And if you think about this further, the only thing that matters is that the phone needs to be incorporated into our computers, ala' a pad, whoever makes it.
It only makes sense.
The "pad", whoever makes it, has a screen that's larger so you can watch the videos.
Taken further, the screen is also better for reading and responding to emails. The keyboard of the pad is better than doing it on a phone, too, of course.
So since this is going to happen, since it's inevitable, bring it on.
Just give us the phone in the pad (computer)--don't give us a computer the size of a telephone.
Do away with the phones. Give us fully-operational pads with two cameras and a phone and be done with it.
Already, people are getting emails on their phones and watching videos on those little screens.
At the same time, some phone service is certainly already available on our computers and have been for some time.
With the iPad, it's obvious the two will be brought together even sooner.
And if you think about this further, the only thing that matters is that the phone needs to be incorporated into our computers, ala' a pad, whoever makes it.
It only makes sense.
The "pad", whoever makes it, has a screen that's larger so you can watch the videos.
Taken further, the screen is also better for reading and responding to emails. The keyboard of the pad is better than doing it on a phone, too, of course.
So since this is going to happen, since it's inevitable, bring it on.
Just give us the phone in the pad (computer)--don't give us a computer the size of a telephone.
Do away with the phones. Give us fully-operational pads with two cameras and a phone and be done with it.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Soldier casualties in Afghanistan this last week
The Pentagon released the names of eleven service members killed in Afghanistan.
http://www.icasualties.org/
- US Army PVT Devon J Harris, 24, Mesquite, TX
- US Army 1LT Scott F Milley, 23, Sudbury, MA
- US Air Force Lt Col Gwendolyn A Locht, 46, Fort Walton Beach, FL
- US Army SFC Barry E Jarvis, 36, Tell City, IN
- US Army SSG Curtis A Oakes, 29, Athens, OH
- US Army SPC Matthew W Ramsey, 20, Quartz Hill, CA
- US Army PFC Jacob A Gassen, 21, Beaver Dam, WI
- US Army PFC Austin G Staggs, 19, Senoia, GA
- US Army PFC Buddy W McLain, 24, Mexico, ME
- US Marines Cpl Chad S Wade, 22, Bentonville, AR
- US Marines Sgt Matthew T Abbate, 26, Honolulu, HI
http://www.icasualties.org/
Can we even imagine China and it's size?
Really, we think of China as big and we kind of know and recognize that in the back of our minds but it becomes like imagining a billion--we just can't wrap our minds around it.
A friend of mine pointed this out last month to me. China is beyond big. An article today reminded me I needed to put this up here.
The article, in part:
China's skyscraper boom buoys global industry
By Joe McDonald, AP Business Writer
Sun Dec 5, 6:02 am ET
BEIJING – The 121-story Shanghai Tower is more than China's next record-setting building: It's an economic lifeline for the elite club of skyscraper builders.
Financial gloom has derailed plans for new towers in Chicago, Moscow, Dubai and other cities. But in China, work on the 2,074-foot (632-meter) Shanghai Tower, due to be completed in 2014, and dozens of other tall buildings is rushing ahead, powered by a buoyant economy and providing a steady stream of work to architects and engineers.
The U.S. high-rise market is "pretty much dead," said Dan Winey, a managing director for Gensler, the Shanghai Tower's San Francisco-based architects. "For us, China in the next 10 to 15 years is going to be a huge market."
China has six of the world's 15 tallest buildings — compared with three in the United States, the skyscraper's birthplace — and is constructing more at a furious pace, defying worries about a possible real estate boom and bust. It is on track to pass the U.S. as the country with the most buildings among the 100 tallest by a wide margin.
"There are cities in China that most Western people have never heard of that have bigger populations and more tall buildings than half the prominent cities in the U.S.," said Antony Wood, executive director of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago.
China is leading a wave of skyscraper building in developing countries that is shifting the field's center of gravity away from the United States and Europe.
The shift is so drastic that North America's share of the 100 tallest buildings will fall from 80 percent in 1990 to just 18 percent by 2012, according to Wood. He said by then, 45 of the tallest will be in Asia, with 34 of those in China alone.
"So 34 percent of the 100 tallest buildings will be in a single country. That has only happened once before, and that was with the USA," he said.
Okay, and that's one thing and perhaps that shows where China and the US are headed (up/down, respectively? Let's hope not but so it might seem) but it's in their population that you really get a sense of scope of the country and its people:
Ten cities in the US have a population of 1,000,000:
New York City 8.34m
Los Angeles 3.86m
Chicago 2.93m
Houston 2.31m
Phoenix 1.62m
Philadelphia 1.54m
San Antonio 1.42m
San Diego 1.35m
Dallas 1.33m
San Jose 1.01m
And that's easy enough to wrap one's mind around.
China, though? Read on:
According the People's Daily Newspaper, China had more than 660 cities by the end of 2002, of which 10 had populations of more than 4 million each in the urban area; 23, between 2 and 4 million; 138, between 1 and 2 million; 279, between 500,000 and 1 million; 171, between 200,000 and 500,000; and 39, less than 200,000.
So as of 2002, China had 171 cities with population over 1 million.
By now, 2010, that number is likely even larger.
That's pretty staggering.
Get the feeling we're dwarfed?
Enjoy your Sunday, y'all, regardless.
Links: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/as_china_skyscraper_empire
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_cities_in_the_US_have_a_population_over_1_million
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070504100112AAk3mPl
A friend of mine pointed this out last month to me. China is beyond big. An article today reminded me I needed to put this up here.
The article, in part:
China's skyscraper boom buoys global industry
By Joe McDonald, AP Business Writer
Sun Dec 5, 6:02 am ET
BEIJING – The 121-story Shanghai Tower is more than China's next record-setting building: It's an economic lifeline for the elite club of skyscraper builders.
Financial gloom has derailed plans for new towers in Chicago, Moscow, Dubai and other cities. But in China, work on the 2,074-foot (632-meter) Shanghai Tower, due to be completed in 2014, and dozens of other tall buildings is rushing ahead, powered by a buoyant economy and providing a steady stream of work to architects and engineers.
The U.S. high-rise market is "pretty much dead," said Dan Winey, a managing director for Gensler, the Shanghai Tower's San Francisco-based architects. "For us, China in the next 10 to 15 years is going to be a huge market."
China has six of the world's 15 tallest buildings — compared with three in the United States, the skyscraper's birthplace — and is constructing more at a furious pace, defying worries about a possible real estate boom and bust. It is on track to pass the U.S. as the country with the most buildings among the 100 tallest by a wide margin.
"There are cities in China that most Western people have never heard of that have bigger populations and more tall buildings than half the prominent cities in the U.S.," said Antony Wood, executive director of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago.
China is leading a wave of skyscraper building in developing countries that is shifting the field's center of gravity away from the United States and Europe.
The shift is so drastic that North America's share of the 100 tallest buildings will fall from 80 percent in 1990 to just 18 percent by 2012, according to Wood. He said by then, 45 of the tallest will be in Asia, with 34 of those in China alone.
"So 34 percent of the 100 tallest buildings will be in a single country. That has only happened once before, and that was with the USA," he said.
Okay, and that's one thing and perhaps that shows where China and the US are headed (up/down, respectively? Let's hope not but so it might seem) but it's in their population that you really get a sense of scope of the country and its people:
Ten cities in the US have a population of 1,000,000:
New York City 8.34m
Los Angeles 3.86m
Chicago 2.93m
Houston 2.31m
Phoenix 1.62m
Philadelphia 1.54m
San Antonio 1.42m
San Diego 1.35m
Dallas 1.33m
San Jose 1.01m
And that's easy enough to wrap one's mind around.
China, though? Read on:
According the People's Daily Newspaper, China had more than 660 cities by the end of 2002, of which 10 had populations of more than 4 million each in the urban area; 23, between 2 and 4 million; 138, between 1 and 2 million; 279, between 500,000 and 1 million; 171, between 200,000 and 500,000; and 39, less than 200,000.
So as of 2002, China had 171 cities with population over 1 million.
By now, 2010, that number is likely even larger.
That's pretty staggering.
Get the feeling we're dwarfed?
Enjoy your Sunday, y'all, regardless.
Links: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/as_china_skyscraper_empire
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_cities_in_the_US_have_a_population_over_1_million
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070504100112AAk3mPl
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Another big example of health care rationing here and now in the US
As it says above, yet another example--this one the latest--of health care rationing here in the good ol' US of A, this time from The New York Times:
Arizona Cuts Financing for Transplant Patients
By Marc Lacey
PHOENIX — Even physicians with decades of experience telling patients that their lives are nearing an end are having difficulty discussing a potentially fatal condition that has arisen in Arizona: Death by budget cut.
Effective at the beginning of October, Arizona stopped financing certain transplant operations under the state’s version of Medicaid. Many doctors say the decision amounts to a death sentence for some low-income patients, who have little chance of survival without transplants and lack the hundreds of thousands of dollars needed to pay for them.
Just don't think and/or don't tell me rationing of health care doesn't already take place in America because it does. This is just one more example in a long line of them, just the latest. It's pathetic.
If you look at the picture that goes with this story, too, at the top of it, you'll see Mr. Randy Sheperd looks solidly Middle-Class here. We're not talking only about not giving medicine to the indigent. This isn't handouts to or for the poor. It's important to note that.
Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/03/us/03transplant.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=a23
Arizona Cuts Financing for Transplant Patients
By Marc Lacey
PHOENIX — Even physicians with decades of experience telling patients that their lives are nearing an end are having difficulty discussing a potentially fatal condition that has arisen in Arizona: Death by budget cut.
Effective at the beginning of October, Arizona stopped financing certain transplant operations under the state’s version of Medicaid. Many doctors say the decision amounts to a death sentence for some low-income patients, who have little chance of survival without transplants and lack the hundreds of thousands of dollars needed to pay for them.
Just don't think and/or don't tell me rationing of health care doesn't already take place in America because it does. This is just one more example in a long line of them, just the latest. It's pathetic.
If you look at the picture that goes with this story, too, at the top of it, you'll see Mr. Randy Sheperd looks solidly Middle-Class here. We're not talking only about not giving medicine to the indigent. This isn't handouts to or for the poor. It's important to note that.
Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/03/us/03transplant.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=a23
Thoughts on a Saturday morning--and the day's newspaper
--Emanuel Cleaver voted AGAINST censuring Charlie Rangel? Wha? Are you kidding me? How does that do anything but make you look like someone who supports the corrupt status quo? Representative Cleaver, we deserve better than this. You owe us better than this. You, sir, need to constantly show us, your constituents that you are for a "clean"--or cleaner, at least--Congress and that you're not in this whole thing just for yourself. Both. Not to be outdone, Dennis Moore, over in Kansas, did the same, shameful thing. Heads up, guys--this is not the kind of thing we voters are looking for in representatives, if that last election didn't teach you anyting. Just sayin'.
--Joel Brinkley, professor of Journalism from Stanford University, has a terrific column on the op/ed page today, pointing out a bit of what I've hinted at strongly in the recent past. That is, if some country--he points out Egypt, mostly--doesn't do what is right and what we want them to do--like, say, clearly support truly clean elections or human rights or whatever--we should cut them off from our financial support. If Hosni Mubarak can't have honest elections in Egypt, cut him off the $2 billion we give them per year until he does. That's what I recently said about our "partner" in the Middle East, Israel.
If Benjamin Netanyahu is going to keep allowing settlements to be built in the West Bank, thereby scuttling the possibility of continued peace talks, cut 'em off. It just makes sense. In the first place, it'll get their attention and likely have them do what we wish. Secondly, in case they haven't noticed in Washington, we aren't as flush with cash as we used to be. Finally, it makes people take us seriously, which would be a nice change of pace. Let's stop being anyone's patsy. (Being realistic, I know we'll never cut Israel off but we should at least consider it, at minimum).
--If you were one of the poor, unfortunate suckers who got totally lied to and screwed by Enterprise Rent-A-Car by buying one of their fleet cars, only to find out later Enterprise had made a deal with the manufacturer to save themselves money by taking out the side-impact air bags, it looks as though you just got screwed again.
The ultimate settlement? You get a $100.00 voucher from the company--apparently to rent yet another of their cars, as though you'd want to deal with them--and a yellow sticker warning "No Side Curtain Airbags."
Yipee, huh? Wowza. That was sure worth it, eh?
Yet another corporation screwing yet more unsuspecting, trusting consumers. Customers, in fact. Thanks, Enterprise!
Remind me to never rent a car from these clowns, the scumbags.
--Who knew there was a forest in Israel?
--"A Chinese passenger train hit a record speed of 302 mph Friday during a test run, state media said. It reportedly was the fastest speed recorded by an unmodified conventional commercial train."
In the meantime, here in the US, Amtrak, the government-run mass transit train system in the US is lucky to even run a train, let alone clean it or have it operate at an ultra-high speed. But "We're Number One!", right?
Enjoy your weekend, y'all.
--Joel Brinkley, professor of Journalism from Stanford University, has a terrific column on the op/ed page today, pointing out a bit of what I've hinted at strongly in the recent past. That is, if some country--he points out Egypt, mostly--doesn't do what is right and what we want them to do--like, say, clearly support truly clean elections or human rights or whatever--we should cut them off from our financial support. If Hosni Mubarak can't have honest elections in Egypt, cut him off the $2 billion we give them per year until he does. That's what I recently said about our "partner" in the Middle East, Israel.
If Benjamin Netanyahu is going to keep allowing settlements to be built in the West Bank, thereby scuttling the possibility of continued peace talks, cut 'em off. It just makes sense. In the first place, it'll get their attention and likely have them do what we wish. Secondly, in case they haven't noticed in Washington, we aren't as flush with cash as we used to be. Finally, it makes people take us seriously, which would be a nice change of pace. Let's stop being anyone's patsy. (Being realistic, I know we'll never cut Israel off but we should at least consider it, at minimum).
--If you were one of the poor, unfortunate suckers who got totally lied to and screwed by Enterprise Rent-A-Car by buying one of their fleet cars, only to find out later Enterprise had made a deal with the manufacturer to save themselves money by taking out the side-impact air bags, it looks as though you just got screwed again.
The ultimate settlement? You get a $100.00 voucher from the company--apparently to rent yet another of their cars, as though you'd want to deal with them--and a yellow sticker warning "No Side Curtain Airbags."
Yipee, huh? Wowza. That was sure worth it, eh?
Yet another corporation screwing yet more unsuspecting, trusting consumers. Customers, in fact. Thanks, Enterprise!
Remind me to never rent a car from these clowns, the scumbags.
--Who knew there was a forest in Israel?
--"A Chinese passenger train hit a record speed of 302 mph Friday during a test run, state media said. It reportedly was the fastest speed recorded by an unmodified conventional commercial train."
In the meantime, here in the US, Amtrak, the government-run mass transit train system in the US is lucky to even run a train, let alone clean it or have it operate at an ultra-high speed. But "We're Number One!", right?
Enjoy your weekend, y'all.
Friday, December 3, 2010
George Carlin: "...they don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking"
Feed the machines of war and corrections, right?
I think the Russians are trying to cozy up to us
Yes, I think it's finally happened. The Russians want to get on our good side--even at the Kremliin.
My proof?
The Pravda, the Kremlin's newspaper as shown on Politics USA. Check it out:
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey writes in Pravda:
“By attacking the democratically elected President of the United States of America at a sensitive time in her country’s history, she shows the tact of a boorish drunkard bawling obscenities at a funeral….
And now she turns not only against the fibre and backbone of her country, but against its democratically elected President, accusing him of being incompetent for not stopping Wikileaks. Where was she and where was her GOP before and during the 9/11 attacks? She accuses President Obama of not taking “steps” to assure the leaks were not published. What “steps”?……
If anything is a threat to the national security of the United States of America, it is this screaming, unrefined oaf with as much class as a searing release of flatulence followed by hysterical giggling at a state banquet. Is this what the people of the USA deserve?
To attack the President of the country at a time when the USA needs to close ranks and stand together to consolidate the enormous strides his (President Obama’s) intelligent and respectful approach has achieved in building bridges, when her party’s period in government bombed them, Spankin’ Sarah Palin comes across as a pitifully inadequate anachronism from the times of the Far West.”
The writer of the Politics USA article goes on to write:
When she went to Hong Kong for a speaking engagement, Ms. Palin attacked her President on foreign soil during a time of war. On her first book tour, Palin and her entourage of hit men (aka, her father, et al) attacked the Commander in Chief on military bases. In times of major decisions regarding the war in Afghanistan, Palin has mocked the President when he followed the course of action recommended by his Generals. On 9/11, Palin bashed the President. In her speeches, Ms Palin is sure to remind her followers that Obama’s foreign policy is weakening America while she accuses the President of not loving his country. During the WikiLeaks crisis, Palin blamed the President instead of calling for a united front for our country.
Ms Palin’s heavily moderated Facebook page was just months ago full of comments calling for the death of our President, sedition, and the overthrowing of the Obama administration as being God’s will. Those comments were left standing while comments questioning Ms Palin in any way were scrubbed. Ms Palin stands for a level of vitriolic, simmering revulsion so steeped in delusions of self-righteousness, it’s tough to swim to sanity once you’ve been washed in the blood her particular lamb.
We are at war, facing a global economic crisis, still reeling from a devastating oil spill and now facing the challenges brought on by the WikiLeaks dump. Yet, on every issue of importance, Palin has inserted herself with jarring accusations against the President, offering nothing but malicious hate fueled by a failure to understand what she doesn’t understand.
When the Russians are calling you out for failing to support your country in a time of need, for attempting to bring her to her knees with petty attacks on the President, you have seriously jumped the patriotism shark. Sarah Palin is the traitorous figurehead of the GOP, whose only purpose seems to be to assist them in their goal to bring down President Barack Obama. Good questions.
1) Why should Ms. Palin ("The Quitter") not support the president? and
2) Why isn't the press and media calling her out on it, other than the fact that they're corporate-owned and only want the profits from ginning up lightweight stories?
I'm beginning to like those Russkies. (Even if their names do sound decidedly British).
Link: http://www.politicususa.com/en/foreign-sarah-palin-traitor
http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/30-11-2010/115998-spankin_sarah-0/
My proof?
The Pravda, the Kremlin's newspaper as shown on Politics USA. Check it out:
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey writes in Pravda:
“By attacking the democratically elected President of the United States of America at a sensitive time in her country’s history, she shows the tact of a boorish drunkard bawling obscenities at a funeral….
And now she turns not only against the fibre and backbone of her country, but against its democratically elected President, accusing him of being incompetent for not stopping Wikileaks. Where was she and where was her GOP before and during the 9/11 attacks? She accuses President Obama of not taking “steps” to assure the leaks were not published. What “steps”?……
If anything is a threat to the national security of the United States of America, it is this screaming, unrefined oaf with as much class as a searing release of flatulence followed by hysterical giggling at a state banquet. Is this what the people of the USA deserve?
To attack the President of the country at a time when the USA needs to close ranks and stand together to consolidate the enormous strides his (President Obama’s) intelligent and respectful approach has achieved in building bridges, when her party’s period in government bombed them, Spankin’ Sarah Palin comes across as a pitifully inadequate anachronism from the times of the Far West.”
The writer of the Politics USA article goes on to write:
When she went to Hong Kong for a speaking engagement, Ms. Palin attacked her President on foreign soil during a time of war. On her first book tour, Palin and her entourage of hit men (aka, her father, et al) attacked the Commander in Chief on military bases. In times of major decisions regarding the war in Afghanistan, Palin has mocked the President when he followed the course of action recommended by his Generals. On 9/11, Palin bashed the President. In her speeches, Ms Palin is sure to remind her followers that Obama’s foreign policy is weakening America while she accuses the President of not loving his country. During the WikiLeaks crisis, Palin blamed the President instead of calling for a united front for our country.
Ms Palin’s heavily moderated Facebook page was just months ago full of comments calling for the death of our President, sedition, and the overthrowing of the Obama administration as being God’s will. Those comments were left standing while comments questioning Ms Palin in any way were scrubbed. Ms Palin stands for a level of vitriolic, simmering revulsion so steeped in delusions of self-righteousness, it’s tough to swim to sanity once you’ve been washed in the blood her particular lamb.
We are at war, facing a global economic crisis, still reeling from a devastating oil spill and now facing the challenges brought on by the WikiLeaks dump. Yet, on every issue of importance, Palin has inserted herself with jarring accusations against the President, offering nothing but malicious hate fueled by a failure to understand what she doesn’t understand.
When the Russians are calling you out for failing to support your country in a time of need, for attempting to bring her to her knees with petty attacks on the President, you have seriously jumped the patriotism shark. Sarah Palin is the traitorous figurehead of the GOP, whose only purpose seems to be to assist them in their goal to bring down President Barack Obama. Good questions.
1) Why should Ms. Palin ("The Quitter") not support the president? and
2) Why isn't the press and media calling her out on it, other than the fact that they're corporate-owned and only want the profits from ginning up lightweight stories?
I'm beginning to like those Russkies. (Even if their names do sound decidedly British).
Link: http://www.politicususa.com/en/foreign-sarah-palin-traitor
http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/30-11-2010/115998-spankin_sarah-0/
Thursday, December 2, 2010
The shape of the next Congress
Want a government that works?
Well, you aren't going to get it.
And neither am I--or the rest of the country.
And why should we? The Republicans are in the House of Representatives and no one knows or wants non-working government more than them.
Proof? Here you go:
GOP says it'll block bills until tax cuts extended
By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, Associated Press Julie Hirschfeld Davis
.WASHINGTON – Senate Republicans threatened Wednesday to block virtually all legislation until expiring tax cuts are extended and a bill is passed to fund the federal government, vastly complicating Democratic attempts to leave their own stamp on the final days of the post-election Congress.
"While there are other items that might ultimately be worthy of the Senate's attention, we cannot agree to prioritize any matters above the critical issues of funding the government and preventing a job-killing tax hike," all 42 GOP senators wrote in a letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. The 42 signatures are more than enough to block action on almost any item he wishes to advance.
This is just the beginning, too. Come next year, when they have complete control of the House, it will be and get far worse. But we knew that.
There's more, too. You know how those pesky children aren't millionaires, right? Well, the Democrats were pushing for money for funds for children's school nutrition. Naturally, the Republicans will have none of that:
Republicans block child nutrition bill
WASHINGTON – House Republicans have temporarily blocked legislation to feed school meals to thousands more hungry children. Republicans used a procedural maneuver Wednesday to try to amend the $4.5 billion bill, which would give more needy children the opportunity to eat free lunches at school and make those lunches healthier. First lady Michelle Obama has lobbied for the bill as part of her "Let's Move" campaign to combat childhood obesity.
And I'm not absolutely or necessarily for this. It's just that, if this were money for corporations or the wealthy, they'd be all for it. They're for keeping tax cuts for the richest of Americans but they're vehemently against this.
Picture perfect.
That's the Republican Party all over.
I can hardly wait until next year when they're in total control of the House. You?
Link: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/12/01/national/w001045S54.DTL&tsp=1
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101201/ap_on_bi_ge/us_congress_school_nutrition
Well, you aren't going to get it.
And neither am I--or the rest of the country.
And why should we? The Republicans are in the House of Representatives and no one knows or wants non-working government more than them.
Proof? Here you go:
GOP says it'll block bills until tax cuts extended
By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, Associated Press Julie Hirschfeld Davis
.WASHINGTON – Senate Republicans threatened Wednesday to block virtually all legislation until expiring tax cuts are extended and a bill is passed to fund the federal government, vastly complicating Democratic attempts to leave their own stamp on the final days of the post-election Congress.
"While there are other items that might ultimately be worthy of the Senate's attention, we cannot agree to prioritize any matters above the critical issues of funding the government and preventing a job-killing tax hike," all 42 GOP senators wrote in a letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. The 42 signatures are more than enough to block action on almost any item he wishes to advance.
This is just the beginning, too. Come next year, when they have complete control of the House, it will be and get far worse. But we knew that.
There's more, too. You know how those pesky children aren't millionaires, right? Well, the Democrats were pushing for money for funds for children's school nutrition. Naturally, the Republicans will have none of that:
Republicans block child nutrition bill
WASHINGTON – House Republicans have temporarily blocked legislation to feed school meals to thousands more hungry children. Republicans used a procedural maneuver Wednesday to try to amend the $4.5 billion bill, which would give more needy children the opportunity to eat free lunches at school and make those lunches healthier. First lady Michelle Obama has lobbied for the bill as part of her "Let's Move" campaign to combat childhood obesity.
And I'm not absolutely or necessarily for this. It's just that, if this were money for corporations or the wealthy, they'd be all for it. They're for keeping tax cuts for the richest of Americans but they're vehemently against this.
Picture perfect.
That's the Republican Party all over.
I can hardly wait until next year when they're in total control of the House. You?
Link: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/12/01/national/w001045S54.DTL&tsp=1
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101201/ap_on_bi_ge/us_congress_school_nutrition
Sen. Bernie Sanders speaking truth--and a lot of it
And truth to power.
Why are the Republicans pushing for tax cuts for the wealthy? (As if we didn't know).
More to the point, why are we all letting them?
They're like the grade school bullies.
I have an idea, let's beat 'em up (figuratively).
America: Not a Democracy, using Capitalism
If you don't just read or listen to the same tired things, you can be more fully aware of the oligarchy and plutocracy and plutonomy of America.
Julian Assange: Sinner or saint?
You know, really, this whole Julian Assange/Wikileaks case is pretty fascinating.
Most Americans likely don't know much of Wikileaks other than that they first released 90,000 files on the Afghanistan War earlier this year and then more recently, just released approximately 250,000 more files, of somewhat random material, all from our own government.
The fact is, if you go to the Wikipedia site for Wikileaks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks), you can find they've really had a pretty good go, internationally, of exposing corruption and pollution and other topics, all over the globe. They've, so far, had a pretty good run.
But this last release I spoke of above, with the 250,000 files, seems to be a bit of a low point for both Wikileaks and their founder, this Julian Assange.
The material they released didn't really seem to pin down any real or specific "sins" of the US--or any other country. It all seemed just a hodge-podge of information, released because they could. A big release for release sake. So what if someone said Germany's Angela Merkel isn't "creative"? Who cares? It's all about blown over, even now.
What starts to get fascinating, though, is the charges out of Sweden just now for Mr. Assange. This is the second time for it but he's finally being formally charged, this time with two charges of sexual misconduct.
Interpol issued a high alert for Assange on Wednesday at the request of Sweden. Assange has maintained his innocence and called the charges in Sweden a smear campaign.
You have to wonder if Sweden is correct and he really did these wrong things or if he just pissed off way too many people, in way too high positions and now it's all going to come down on him.
It's getting curioser and curioser.
It should be even more fascinating to see this all unfold.
Link: http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/12/01/assange.profile/index.html?eref=rss_topstories&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+rss/cnn_topstories+(RSS:+Top+Stories)
Most Americans likely don't know much of Wikileaks other than that they first released 90,000 files on the Afghanistan War earlier this year and then more recently, just released approximately 250,000 more files, of somewhat random material, all from our own government.
The fact is, if you go to the Wikipedia site for Wikileaks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks), you can find they've really had a pretty good go, internationally, of exposing corruption and pollution and other topics, all over the globe. They've, so far, had a pretty good run.
But this last release I spoke of above, with the 250,000 files, seems to be a bit of a low point for both Wikileaks and their founder, this Julian Assange.
The material they released didn't really seem to pin down any real or specific "sins" of the US--or any other country. It all seemed just a hodge-podge of information, released because they could. A big release for release sake. So what if someone said Germany's Angela Merkel isn't "creative"? Who cares? It's all about blown over, even now.
What starts to get fascinating, though, is the charges out of Sweden just now for Mr. Assange. This is the second time for it but he's finally being formally charged, this time with two charges of sexual misconduct.
Interpol issued a high alert for Assange on Wednesday at the request of Sweden. Assange has maintained his innocence and called the charges in Sweden a smear campaign.
You have to wonder if Sweden is correct and he really did these wrong things or if he just pissed off way too many people, in way too high positions and now it's all going to come down on him.
It's getting curioser and curioser.
It should be even more fascinating to see this all unfold.
Link: http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/12/01/assange.profile/index.html?eref=rss_topstories&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+rss/cnn_topstories+(RSS:+Top+Stories)
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Growing hate attacks: signs of hard times?
I heard, earlier in the day, there was an anti-semitic attack here in the States, in Indiana, actually, at Indiana University and found this at the Daily Kos from the IU website:
In the last week, rocks have been thrown through windows at the Helene G. Simon Hillel Center and the Chabad House Jewish Student Center, and a rock was thrown at the staff directory sign for the Jewish Studies program. There has also been vandalism of Hebrew books at the Wells Library. All these incidents have been reported to police and to the FBI and all are under intense investigation.
Doesn't it seem like we should and would be so far above and beyond this kind of ignorance, no matter the economy? I would have hoped so.
Then, today, I see this:
Hate crimes jump across England, Wales, N Ireland
In the last week, rocks have been thrown through windows at the Helene G. Simon Hillel Center and the Chabad House Jewish Student Center, and a rock was thrown at the staff directory sign for the Jewish Studies program. There has also been vandalism of Hebrew books at the Wells Library. All these incidents have been reported to police and to the FBI and all are under intense investigation.
Doesn't it seem like we should and would be so far above and beyond this kind of ignorance, no matter the economy? I would have hoped so.
Then, today, I see this:
Hate crimes jump across England, Wales, N Ireland
"The time has come..."
From a favorite book and poem:
"The time has come," the Walrus said,
To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings."
Link: http://www.jabberwocky.com/carroll/walrus.html
"The time has come," the Walrus said,
To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings."
Link: http://www.jabberwocky.com/carroll/walrus.html
Shutting down government, Republican redux
Republicans seem to be lining up to threaten to not raise the debt ceiling for the government, which would shut down--again--that same government.
This is no way to work together for the betterment of the country, for sure.
They did this once before, back in 1995-96, the Republicans and it blew up in their faces. They were then blamed for the government not working, and rightfully so. They did it, the people didn't like it so they should get the blame for it.
Now they seem to be headed the same way again.
Several freshmen Republicans have already come out against raising the debt ceiling:
A handful of incoming Republican lawmakers — including Sen.-elect Mike Lee (R-UT) and Reps.-elect Jeff Denhem (R-CA) and Tim Scott (R-SC) — have said that they will not vote to increase the debt ceiling, even though the U.S. government will reach its borrowing limit early next year. “I’m going to vote against raising the national debt ceiling. We simply can’t continue to mortgage the future or our unborn children and grandchildren,” Lee said.
Plenty of Republican freshman besides these three also ran on opposition to a debt ceiling increase, and according to Rep.-elect Bill Johnson (R-OH), many of them have agreed to stick to their guns when the vote comes:
Rep.-elect Bill Johnson of Ohio said those who ran on such messages didn’t intend to reverse themselves now. “Most of us agreed that to increase the limit would be a betrayal of what we told voters we would do,” he said.
Then they were followed by Rep.-elect Alan Nunnelee (R-MS), Rep.-elect Tim Walberg (R-MI), Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA), Rep. Steve King (R-IA), Sen.-elect Mike Lee (R-UT), Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) and finally, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX).
And while there are some similarities between this "showdown" and the last one, in the mid-1990's, this time shutting down the government by not raising the debt ceiling could be far more negative and financially devastating to both the country and the world markets:
As the Center for American Progress’ David Min pointed out, failure to raise the debt ceiling could be disastrous:
The financial markets are on edge today, with U.S. Treasury bonds being the safe haven for most investment capital. Refusing to raise the debt ceiling would recklessly disrupt the sale and purchase of new Treasury bonds, and could potentially cause a run on outstanding Treasurys as well, as investors sought other investments. This could have catastrophic consequences for our economy as well as the economic stability of the rest of the world.
Such a move will also increase long-term deficits and debt, while cutting off Social Security and Medicare benefits for millions of seniors. But if Johnson is to be believed, many incoming Republican freshman will put that second to their Tea Party ideology.
For once, I'm hoping these empty, shallow clowns don't go through with their hair-brained, ignorant idea.
Seeing them fall is terrific.
I don't want them taking us all with them.
Links: http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/10/big_freeze.html
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/11/22/freshmen-betrayal/
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/11/16/gohmert-shutdown/
This is no way to work together for the betterment of the country, for sure.
They did this once before, back in 1995-96, the Republicans and it blew up in their faces. They were then blamed for the government not working, and rightfully so. They did it, the people didn't like it so they should get the blame for it.
Now they seem to be headed the same way again.
Several freshmen Republicans have already come out against raising the debt ceiling:
A handful of incoming Republican lawmakers — including Sen.-elect Mike Lee (R-UT) and Reps.-elect Jeff Denhem (R-CA) and Tim Scott (R-SC) — have said that they will not vote to increase the debt ceiling, even though the U.S. government will reach its borrowing limit early next year. “I’m going to vote against raising the national debt ceiling. We simply can’t continue to mortgage the future or our unborn children and grandchildren,” Lee said.
Plenty of Republican freshman besides these three also ran on opposition to a debt ceiling increase, and according to Rep.-elect Bill Johnson (R-OH), many of them have agreed to stick to their guns when the vote comes:
Rep.-elect Bill Johnson of Ohio said those who ran on such messages didn’t intend to reverse themselves now. “Most of us agreed that to increase the limit would be a betrayal of what we told voters we would do,” he said.
Then they were followed by Rep.-elect Alan Nunnelee (R-MS), Rep.-elect Tim Walberg (R-MI), Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA), Rep. Steve King (R-IA), Sen.-elect Mike Lee (R-UT), Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) and finally, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX).
And while there are some similarities between this "showdown" and the last one, in the mid-1990's, this time shutting down the government by not raising the debt ceiling could be far more negative and financially devastating to both the country and the world markets:
As the Center for American Progress’ David Min pointed out, failure to raise the debt ceiling could be disastrous:
The financial markets are on edge today, with U.S. Treasury bonds being the safe haven for most investment capital. Refusing to raise the debt ceiling would recklessly disrupt the sale and purchase of new Treasury bonds, and could potentially cause a run on outstanding Treasurys as well, as investors sought other investments. This could have catastrophic consequences for our economy as well as the economic stability of the rest of the world.
Such a move will also increase long-term deficits and debt, while cutting off Social Security and Medicare benefits for millions of seniors. But if Johnson is to be believed, many incoming Republican freshman will put that second to their Tea Party ideology.
For once, I'm hoping these empty, shallow clowns don't go through with their hair-brained, ignorant idea.
Seeing them fall is terrific.
I don't want them taking us all with them.
Links: http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/10/big_freeze.html
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/11/22/freshmen-betrayal/
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/11/16/gohmert-shutdown/
What's that saying? "Even a blind pig finds an acorn once in a while"?
Well, whaddya' know? Not only do I think I agree with Mayor Mark Funkhouser but I think he's dead right for both Missouri and Kansas on this one. And I have a 3rd source to back it up.
Here's the Funk's position:
Kansas City Mayor Mark Funkhouser is launching more criticism at the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce, this time for its support of a Kansas development program.
Funkhouser said the chamber’s stated support of Kansas’ Promoting Employment Across Kansas (PEAK) incentive program in its 2011 public policy agenda is detrimental to the interests of Kansas City, Mo., and further inflames the job battle between Kansas and Missouri.
That’s a battle he said is fueled by the liberal use of tax incentives to the long-term damage of both states.
“This is a program that is absolutely raiding jobs from Kansas City to no benefit to the region,” Funkhouser said Wednesday.
And in support of the Funk, for once, there's a local study saying he's right:
Missouri and Kansas rank among the bottom half of states when it comes to transitioning toward a global, innovation-based “new economy,” according to a new study.
Kansas ranked 26th and Missouri 33rd in the 2010 State New Economy Index, released Thursday by the Kansas City-based Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.
The report suggests that states set up policies that decrease competition within states, that pursue win-win economic results and that look for “new state-federal, innovation-based economic development partnerships.”
“In today’s highly competitive environment, states must work together and with the federal government to overhaul their economic development policies,” Dr. Robert Atkinson, ITIF president and index co-author, said in the release. “Too often, states still view their economic competitors as next door, rather than halfway around the world. If, instead, they used incentives to expand broadband, support entrepreneurial assistance programs, or invest in research and technology transfer, they — and the nation as a whole — would be far more globally competitive.”
We've seen this before and we'll keep seeing it--Kansas and Missouri just tearing at each other, taking jobs back and forth across the state line.
It ought to stop.
The mayors of all these towns along the Missouri and Kansas borders ought to get together and pressure the 2 governors to do the same so we call a truce on this kind of border war skirmishing for companies and make a plan to work together instead. We'd be ahead as two states, separately and together, both, but we'd also be strengthened regionally. This information suggests we could be stronger as a country, too, if it were done nationwide.
What a concept. Imagine that--working together for everyone's benefit.
Remember the old song? "Wouldn't it be nice?"
Links: http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/news/2010/11/24/funkhouser-says-chamber-fuels-job-battle.html?ed=2010-11-24&s=article_du&ana=e_du_pub
http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/news/2010/11/18/missouri-kansas-not-ready-new-economy.html?ed=2010-11-18&s=article_du&ana=e_du_pub
Here's the Funk's position:
Kansas City Mayor Mark Funkhouser is launching more criticism at the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce, this time for its support of a Kansas development program.
Funkhouser said the chamber’s stated support of Kansas’ Promoting Employment Across Kansas (PEAK) incentive program in its 2011 public policy agenda is detrimental to the interests of Kansas City, Mo., and further inflames the job battle between Kansas and Missouri.
That’s a battle he said is fueled by the liberal use of tax incentives to the long-term damage of both states.
“This is a program that is absolutely raiding jobs from Kansas City to no benefit to the region,” Funkhouser said Wednesday.
And in support of the Funk, for once, there's a local study saying he's right:
Missouri and Kansas rank among the bottom half of states when it comes to transitioning toward a global, innovation-based “new economy,” according to a new study.
Kansas ranked 26th and Missouri 33rd in the 2010 State New Economy Index, released Thursday by the Kansas City-based Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.
The report suggests that states set up policies that decrease competition within states, that pursue win-win economic results and that look for “new state-federal, innovation-based economic development partnerships.”
“In today’s highly competitive environment, states must work together and with the federal government to overhaul their economic development policies,” Dr. Robert Atkinson, ITIF president and index co-author, said in the release. “Too often, states still view their economic competitors as next door, rather than halfway around the world. If, instead, they used incentives to expand broadband, support entrepreneurial assistance programs, or invest in research and technology transfer, they — and the nation as a whole — would be far more globally competitive.”
We've seen this before and we'll keep seeing it--Kansas and Missouri just tearing at each other, taking jobs back and forth across the state line.
It ought to stop.
The mayors of all these towns along the Missouri and Kansas borders ought to get together and pressure the 2 governors to do the same so we call a truce on this kind of border war skirmishing for companies and make a plan to work together instead. We'd be ahead as two states, separately and together, both, but we'd also be strengthened regionally. This information suggests we could be stronger as a country, too, if it were done nationwide.
What a concept. Imagine that--working together for everyone's benefit.
Remember the old song? "Wouldn't it be nice?"
Links: http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/news/2010/11/24/funkhouser-says-chamber-fuels-job-battle.html?ed=2010-11-24&s=article_du&ana=e_du_pub
http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/news/2010/11/18/missouri-kansas-not-ready-new-economy.html?ed=2010-11-18&s=article_du&ana=e_du_pub
Good news for America; bad for Republicans
The markets are up--way up. About 200 points.
It seems the country just got a good jobs report--The U.S. private sector posted its largest jobs gain in three years and China posted strong factory production data.
And sure, it's temporary. It's a blip.
But it's good news.
It's good economic news and we need that.
Just not the Republicans.
They don't want any real, good news for the country until after November, 2012.
Link:http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE69O1D320101201
It seems the country just got a good jobs report--The U.S. private sector posted its largest jobs gain in three years and China posted strong factory production data.
And sure, it's temporary. It's a blip.
But it's good news.
It's good economic news and we need that.
Just not the Republicans.
They don't want any real, good news for the country until after November, 2012.
Link:http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE69O1D320101201
Quote of the day--on big government
"...I don't want to scrap what you might call big government. I distrust big business more than big government. But often enough the two entities have been bedfellows with silk sheets and matching toothbrushes..." --Dar Williams, Contributor/Commentator, The Huffington Post
Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dar-williams/an-open-invitation-to-the_b_786277.html?ref=fb&src=sp#sb=238881,b=facebook
Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dar-williams/an-open-invitation-to-the_b_786277.html?ref=fb&src=sp#sb=238881,b=facebook
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