I wrote this in my spare time. I want to encourage the readers to never give up.
GM has its problems. Don't give up.
One of my students was on his way to a banquet on his motorcycle and was hit by a car. He recovered and he did not give up.
Another student had an accidental bullet wound in the hand one week before the final exam. She did not give up.
Another student's mother had a heart attack a few days before final exam. He did not give up.
Here is another example.
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/174243-nfl-pep-talk-never-give-up
Never give up.
Cable news and right wing blogs are swarming with the revisionist history on the New Deal. Arm yourself against lies, spin and propaganda by reading info from a number of sources.
Here down a article about this topic. [Media Matters is a progressive media watchdog and fact checking organization which has received accolades from numerous sources (except the right wing media which often gets debunked by Media Matters).]
The link to digg it and for article: Conservatives Cherry-Pick 1930s Unemployment Figures
Summary: Columnists Mona Charen and George Will continued a trend among conservative media of responding to comparisons between the current economic situation and that of the 1930s and between Barack Obama and FDR by attacking the New Deal. In separate columns, both Charen and Will cherry-picked unemployment figures to assert that the New Deal did not reduce unemployment. But historians and progressive economists have noted that unemployment fell every year of the New Deal except during the 1937-38 recession; further, Nobel-laureate Paul Krugman has said it was a reversal of New Deal policies, not a continuance of them, that contributed to rising unemployment in 1937 and 1938.
Yes we can! Best wishes, Steffen
http://changeforbetterworld.blogspot.com/2009/01/my-way-to-say-goodbye-to-neocons-bush.html
Formal Petition to Attorney General-Designate Eric Holder to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate and prosecute any and all government officials who have participated in War Crimes.
You can Digg it: My_way to say GOODBYE to neocons, Bush and Cheney!
A picture from me to say goodbye from most bad president of US and all neocons.We can only hope many people will long enough remember. Bush had a lot bad gifts for the change! Let's take care the poor and normal people will not have to pay now too much after the rich made profit in good time!And what's with impeachment now?! What's with hidden knowledge of Sept. 11 2001?[ Maybe an explanation of picture: it's made like an "egg laying wool milk sow" a metaphorical-idiomatic term in Germany]
Yeah, and here you can see something new about neocons were bringing to us - for me to say: don't forgive Bush and neocons and there is still a lot to work of. We will and can do this too - Yes we can!I got now message too like "If anybody can clean up the mess bush left, it's President Obama." - Yes and Obama likes people helping still to do the work - help him! We were a big and strong movement and so people got knowledge back how strong people can be together! Whistleblower: Bush's NSA spied on EVERYONE (already 4255 Diggs) The NSA had access to ALL YOUR COMMUNICATIONS, regardless of who you were or whether or not you were communicating internationally.
This message is not limited to Christians alone, since within the horizon of realism the candidacy of the President – elect Barack Obama was made possible as a result of the mutual efforts of mankind especially in the country.
We are in the Christian church calendar referred to as the “advent” which essentially is the preparatory or window period before the commemorative birth of our Lord Jesus Christ on Christmas day, which is December 25th.
As we all wait in joyful hope for the inauguration of the President- elect Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States of America, it is particularly interesting and at the same time imperative for everyone of us to reflect on the salvation, transformation and transition that Jesus Christ has won for humanity forever, by offering himself as a living sacrifice so that we might have life in abundance.
The fundamental reason for the Holiday therefore is another opportunity for us to become reconcile with our God and with one another in a fashion that enumerate and portray the humanity and gift of mankind within us. This is the time that we should allow the healing to begin, by making amends and finding the courage to say “I am sorry” to those we have hurt either by commission or omission.
Consequently as we prepare for a new era in the America politics and its relationship with the entire world, we are also gravely challenged to prepare for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ as an infant that is so loving, tender and at the same time divine; being like us in every way except sin.
May the almighty God grant wisdom and understanding to the president- elect Barack Obama and the Vice President- elect Joe Biden and all those who are going to be working with them, so that America and the entire world may be able to transition from sorrow to joy, hatred to love, from war to peace and above all from godlessness to godliness. Amen.
Jesus Christ is essentially and unequivocally the reason for the season and not the materialism that our society has made the season to become in our time.
God bless America
God bless Obama & Biden
next post in my main blog about "Change for better world" - here i collected some movies from this day and shortly before.
(And i saved it to hard disc too. If some original will not be longer responsible in YouTube i will bring it new.)
Please, ckick this link to see the movies:
The change - Obama Acceptance Speech - Change is come to America
[But of course - it's just beginning with the change, there is a lot to do. Please stay in touch, however we do that, through these groups or some other way. ]
Yesterday, the CIGNA headquarters in Philadelphia was invaded by protestors led by the California Nurses Association. This sort of militant action against the most vicious industry in the United States is still rare in America, but it would become the norm, if John McCain was berthed at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
If God forbid, John McCain were able to steal this election (no way on earth he could be elected fair and square), Americans would be forced to take extraordinary actions against the predatory and criminal health insurance industry. Americans would be forced to routinely invade the predatory corporate offices because:
John McCain + THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY = MURDER BY SPREADSHEET
McCain's "reform" of the American health care system would provide big tax incentives for the crippled system to transition from being employer-based to one built on an even worse system of individual responsibility. This is Republican-speak for shift the costs onto your shoulders and mine. He would do this by eliminating the longtime personal tax exemption on employer-provided health insurance and replacing it with a $2,500 individual, and $5,000 family, tax credit for those who have health insurance.
Six days before the most important election in my lifetime, it was an auspicious moment to be standing in the lobby of this Murder by Spreadsheet factory..........
Read the bone-chilling tale at
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/30/866/11503/227/643528
(AP) An ailing Sen. Edward Kennedy is trying to lay the groundwork for a breakthrough on health care reform next year, though many believe the enormous undertaking has been made even more difficult by the troubled economy. Kennedy, aides say, has held several video conferences with lawmakers and staff in recent months as he fights from home to overcome brain cancer. His staff has held more than a dozen meetings in recent weeks with various advocacy and interest groups that will help influence the debate. "We're carrying it out in his absence, but this is his doing," said an aide who was not identified because he was not authorized to speak publicly. "He's in constant touch with leaders in this effort. This is Senator Kennedy at the helm." The story was first reported by The Washington Times. Kennedy doesn't want to repeat the steps that some say doomed health care reform under former President Clinton. That means acting quickly when Congress returns to Washington after the election and the holidays. "There were at least two major factors in the failure of the '93 effort," the aide said. "One was jurisdictional fracturing within the Congress and the other was the time after the inauguration to get a proposal together. Senator Kennedy's analysis is that we need to avoid both of those features." Kennedy is chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. Sen. Barack Obama's health care plan will be the starting point in Kennedy's efforts. That's a big assumption given that the presidential race is far from over. The Obama plan features many changes that Massachusetts enacted in 2006, such as greater use of government subsidies to help people afford coverage. However, Obama would not require adults to buy health insurance, as Massachusetts did. Obama does have a requirement that children be insured. Aides would not say where there has been agreement and disagreement among the various interest groups participating in the meetings. Health care changes under both presidential candidates would be expensive, and the federal government is expected to generate an enormous deficit next year even without incorporating those changes. However, Obama is not letting economic woes deter him. "It's not a question of arithmetic or accounting, it's a question of priorities," an aide said. "When AIG needs the money, somehow the money is found. When Freddie and Fannie need it, somehow the money is found. The theory is they're too big to fail. It can certainly be argued that the health care system is too big to fail, but it's failing for millions of people every day." Kennedy, 76, underwent a risky, 3½-hour surgery in June to remove as much of a tumor as possible. He has been steadily increasing his public activity since undergoing six weeks of chemotherapy and radiation treatment.
From www.cbsnews.com
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/24/health/main4543666.shtml?tag=lowerContent;homeSectionBlock204
© MMVIII The Associated Press.
Doctors and other health care providers work in extraordinary times and have unrivaled abilities, but increasingly our health care system gets in the way of their sound medical judgment. Increasing uncompensated care loads, administrative rules, and insurers' coverage decisions inappropriately influence the practice of medicine. Washington sends dictates but no help.
We need health care reform now. All Americans should have high-quality, affordable medical care that improves health and reduces the burdens on providers and families. Reform must emphasize prevention, not just treatment of the sick; reduce medical errors and malpractice claims; and make the practice of medicine rewarding again. I believe that by working together we can make these goals a reality.
My health care plan has three central tenets. First, all Americans should have access to the benefits of modern medicine. Once and for all, we must ensure that this great country lives up to its ideals and ensures all Americans access to high-quality, affordable health care. Second, we must eliminate the waste that plagues our medical system — layers of bureaucracy that serve no purpose, duplicative tests and procedures that are performed because the right information is not readily available, and doctors providing unnecessary care for fear of being sued. Third, we need a public health infrastructure that works with our medical system to prevent disease and improve health.
We can work together to achieve guaranteed access to medical care during my first term in office. I talk to hardworking Americans every day who worry about paying their medical bills and getting and keeping health insurance for their families. In addition to this daily injustice, it is just plain costly and inefficient to care for people only when they get very ill. I have been committed to correcting this problem since I first started in public life, and I am determined to see it through.
Under my plan, if patients like the insurance they have, they keep it and nothing changes, except the costs are lowered. For those who are left out or have substandard insurance, my plan will offer a choice of affordable health insurance plans. Through a national health-insurance exchange, people without employment-based insurance or who work in small businesses will have a choice of private insurance policies at rates similar to those offered through large firms. To promote competition among insurers, we will also give patients a new public-plan option, providing the same coverage that is offered to members of Congress and their families.
All insurance companies will have to take everyone, regardless of medical history. Like too many Americans, I watched my mother argue with insurance companies while she was in bed dying of cancer; that should not happen.
To make insurance affordable, we will give families income-related tax credits to expand access and streamline plan enrollment and transactions to reduce the administrative burden. I will also expand Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program immediately to cover all children who don't have private coverage. And I have specified how I will pay for it — by cutting out waste in the system and redirecting the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans to help middle-class families afford health insurance.
Unlike some, I do not believe that Americans have overly generous insurance, so I would not impose a new tax on employer-based health insurance, giving employers an incentive to drop coverage and send tens of millions of Americans into the individual insurance market, where insurers cherry-pick healthy enrollees, administrative costs are high, and coverage is less comprehensive and cost sharing is greater. Such a plan would be disastrous.
Health care reform will not succeed unless we create a health care delivery system of which we can be proud. Report after report has pointed out the flaws in the way our system is organized and financed. Clinicians face huge administrative burdens that add to the cost of care and rarely improve its quality. Our reimbursement structure rewards procedures and the use of technology but not time spent with patients or coordinating care. There is little incentive for young physicians to enter into primary care. And U.S. physicians practice with constant concern about malpractice lawsuits.
I am committed to making the fundamental changes necessary to modernize the system to streamline medical practice with the goal of improved patient outcomes. My plan calls for investing $10 billion per year over 5 years in health information technology. This commitment is not just financial: we will ensure that physicians have the technical support they need to implement new systems for patient records and billing. By reducing medical errors and unnecessary duplication of tests, this investment will lead to a long-term reduction in our health care system's overall cost.
We also need to change the way we reimburse for patient care. We should start paying adequately for care coordination, case management, and innovative care-delivery models, such as team-based care and electronic communication. Doctors should be paid fairly by private insurers and by Medicare. Payment reform should improve patient outcomes and should lower overall costs by removing incentives for unnecessary care and rewarding the right care, provided at the right time, for the right reasons. Unlike my opponent, I voted against the recent reduction in physician payments. We can't start health reform by penalizing doctors.
Our medical training institutions are the finest in the world, but we need to ensure that doctors have ready access to the best information on medical advances throughout their careers. The best source of information on the value of a drug or a new technology is not the company that produces and markets it, but rather a careful and independent evaluation of patient outcomes. I will develop an independent national institute to work with the medical community to evaluate and disseminate information on the comparative effectiveness of drugs, devices, treatments, and procedures.
I will invest in programs, including loan repayment, training grants, and improved provider reimbursement, to give young doctors incentives to enter primary care. I will also renew our commitment to investing in biomedical research, which suffered a major lapse under the Bush administration.
Finally, I will address medical malpractice with the central goal of preventing medical errors in the first place. Through substantial investment in information and decision-support technology and other patient-safety initiatives, we will reduce the types of medical errors and oversights that lead to lawsuits. And I am open to additional measures to curb malpractice suits and reduce the cost of malpractice insurance. We must make the practice of medicine rewarding again.
Prevention is also a central part of my reform plan. Health care providers can do only so much; patients, employers, and communities all have a role in helping us to start out healthy and maintain our health. Patients need to step up their efforts to stop smoking, start exercising, and eat right to maintain a healthy weight. Employers need to invest in healthy workplaces and help their employees maintain an active, healthy lifestyle.
Government has a role, too. I will make new funding available for community-based programs aimed at priority public health problems such as smoking and obesity. I will also reward school and workplace health-promotion and prevention initiatives that increase vaccination and exercise and make healthy foods available in cafeterias and vending machines. Finally, I will work with state and local governments to create a coherent, coordinated national public health strategy.
This election will have enormous consequences for health care in our country. As president, I will modernize our health care delivery system and ensure that all Americans have access to high-quality, affordable medical care. I believe that with help and collaboration, especially from those who work so hard to keep us healthy, we can make health care reform a reality.
Source Information
This article (10.1056/NEJMp0807677) was published at www.nejm.org on September 24, 2008. @ 2008 The New England Journal of Medicine.
Deregulation - wars - bank crisis - movie Bush without words
To look the movie you must go to my blog. Unfortunately the situation can still change to be more terrible and so movie is not fun like could be.
(If you have a chance give a Digg please.)
Dear Friends:
Today is a pivotal day. Today we enter the 40 day period leading up to the election. Many of us who are spiritual know that the number 40 is very significant in many religious traditions, particularly in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Moses and the people of Israel found the promised land in the 40th year, Jesus prayed in the desert for 40 days before beginning his ministry. Both the Israelites and Jesus were tested severely during this time. So will we be in these next 40 days.
On another level of Bible understanding called metaphysical (deeper than physical or literal) the number 40 has always represented a time of significant transformation. There is no doubt that America (and the world) is in a period of transformation right now. We need to focus our efforts so that we emerge with a clear direction for good.
Please join in holding a meditation/visualization of a positive outcome for our country during this time. There is a well-organized effort happening to pull together people for a visualization/meditation every day for the next 40 days. A woman named Amy is doing this. She is a yoga teacher - don't know anythng else about her though.
Amy is recording inspiring messages, one for each day, which are instructive and thoughtful (the first one is great!). Amy is not doing this from any particular religious set point, but does offer spiritual wisdom to help keep everyone focused on the positive. I am looking forward to her next message. She is also sending out a call to action email to all who sign up for her event.
You can sign up on the Obama site to do this here:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/organizing/gs5k4f
You can hear Amy's messages here:
http://amyjanesarah.libsyn.com/
Today is a day to merge your mystic and your activist!
In Light and Love,Rima
At Friday night's first presidential debate, if Senator John McCain chooses to not attend, McCain does so even though the Senate is not scheduled for a session during any of the four debates and, if there was a vote, they could easily wait to assist TWO of their members by a modest delay of a few hours. I have two ideas for Senator Barack Obama to consider if McCain bails-out of the debate.
A. At the start, Senator Obama needs to look into the camera, smile, and say what my human resources manager told me: "Showing up, on time, is 80 percent of the job."
B. Next, Senator Obama should briefly debate Senator McCain's committee credentials. What Senate committee duty is so urgent that it requires McCain to miss the debate? Name them. *
1. Armed Services, ranking member
2. Commerce, Science and Transportation
3. Indian Affairs
* = source: Congress.org, http://www.congress.org/bio/id/192
Note: The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation does not regulate finances. Please visit http://www.congress.org/congressorg/directory/committees.tt?commid=scomm to review that committee's jurisdiction.
Its time to A C T !!!!! This election season has remained too close for comfort and to close to call! We have 100,000 ' s of unregistered voters and millions who remain on the fence! Its time for us to come together, voice our unity, and make a difference! Tuesday September 30, 20008 everyone is asked to do two things 1) WEAR BLUE 2) REGISTER TWO VOTERS! (If you can't register two voters talk to two people who may be on the fence/ or a McCain supporter and sway them to become an Obama Supporter). LETS MAKE OBAMA BLUE DAY A DAY OF ACTION!!!! BARACK THE VOTE!!!!!! PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO EVERYBODY WHO MAY BE INTERESTED IN PARTICIPATING!!!
Its time to A C T !!!!!
This election season has remained too close for comfort and to close to call! We have 100,000 ' s of unregistered voters and millions who remain on the fence! Its time for us to come together, voice our unity, and make a difference!
Tuesday September 30, 20008
everyone is asked
to do two things
1) WEAR BLUE
2) REGISTER TWO VOTERS!
(If you can't register two voters talk to two people who may be on the fence/ or a McCain supporter and sway them to become an Obama Supporter).
LETS MAKE OBAMA BLUE DAY A DAY OF ACTION!!!!
BARACK THE VOTE!!!!!!
PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO EVERYBODY WHO MAY BE INTERESTED IN PARTICIPATING!!!
Op-Ed Columnist McCain’s Radical Agenda - Health Care
By BOB HERBERT Published: September 15, 2008
Talk about a shock to the system. Has anyone bothered to notice the radical changes that John McCain and Sarah Palin are planning for the nation’s health insurance system?
These are changes that will set in motion nothing less than the dismantling of the employer-based coverage that protects most American families.
A study coming out Tuesday from scholars at Columbia, Harvard, Purdue and Michigan projects that 20 million Americans who have employment-based health insurance would lose it under the McCain plan.
There is nothing secret about Senator McCain’s far-reaching proposals, but they haven’t gotten much attention because the chatter in this campaign has mostly been about nonsense — lipstick, celebrities and “Drill, baby, drill!”
For starters, the McCain health plan would treat employer-paid health benefits as income that employees would have to pay taxes on.
“It means your employer is going to have to make an estimate on how much the employer is paying for health insurance on your behalf, and you are going to have to pay taxes on that money,” said Sherry Glied, an economist who chairs the Department of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.
Ms. Glied is one of the four scholars who have just completed an independent joint study of the plan. Their findings are being published on the Web site of the policy journal, Health Affairs.
According to the study: “The McCain plan will force millions of Americans into the weakest segment of the private insurance system — the nongroup market — where cost-sharing is high, covered services are limited and people will lose access to benefits they have now.”
The net effect of the plan, the study said, “almost certainly will be to increase family costs for medical care.”
Under the McCain plan (now the McCain-Palin plan) employees who continue to receive employer-paid health benefits would look at their pay stubs each week or each month and find that additional money had been withheld to cover the taxes on the value of their benefits.
While there might be less money in the paycheck, that would not be anything to worry about, according to Senator McCain. That’s because the government would be offering all taxpayers a refundable tax credit — $2,500 for a single worker and $5,000 per family — to be used “to help pay for your health care.”
You may think this is a good move or a bad one — but it’s a monumental change in the way health coverage would be provided to scores of millions of Americans. Why not more attention?
The whole idea of the McCain plan is to get families out of employer-paid health coverage and into the health insurance marketplace, where naked competition is supposed to take care of all ills. (We’re seeing in the Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch fiascos just how well the unfettered marketplace has been working.)
Taxing employer-paid health benefits is the first step in this transition, the equivalent of injecting poison into the system. It’s the beginning of the end.
When younger, healthier workers start seeing additional taxes taken out of their paychecks, some (perhaps many) will opt out of the employer-based plans — either to buy cheaper insurance on their own or to go without coverage.
That will leave employers with a pool of older, less healthy workers to cover. That coverage will necessarily be more expensive, which will encourage more and more employers to give up on the idea of providing coverage at all.
The upshot is that many more Americans — millions more — will find themselves on their own in the bewildering and often treacherous health insurance marketplace. As Senator McCain has said: “I believe the key to real reform is to restore control over our health care system to the patients themselves.”
Yet another radical element of McCain’s plan is his proposal to undermine state health insurance regulations by allowing consumers to buy insurance from sellers anywhere in the country. So a requirement in one state that insurers cover, for example, vaccinations, or annual physicals, or breast examinations, would essentially be meaningless.
In a refrain we’ve heard many times in recent years, Mr. McCain said he is committed to ridding the market of these “needless and costly” insurance regulations.
This entire McCain health insurance transformation is right out of the right-wing Republicans’ ideological playbook: fewer regulations; let the market decide; and send unsophisticated consumers into the crucible alone.
You would think that with some of the most venerable houses on Wall Street crumbling like sand castles right before our eyes, we’d be a little wary about spreading this toxic formula even further into the health care system.
But we’re not even paying much attention.
Full story at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/opinion/16herbert.html?em
@ 2008 The New York Times Company
(A version of this article appeared in print on September 16, 2008, on page A29 of the New York edition.)
Here is a wonderfully inspiring video. This video should open even blind eyes. Watch and Share!
http://www.vimeo.com/1742831#success
Obama, ....I am more impressed with what is on the media in the last day or so than in the two weeks before that. I have been watching for more simple speeches from Obama with the type of enthusiasm that I had seen in the primaries. One great line was when he started the speeches with, "I am still all fired up!" What better way to respond to the Mcain junk. I think that I am not alone in saying that people wish to see some of that gusto that is so positive and that transends the immature quick-fixes of the opposition!!!! Unfortunatly, many voters are breezing in from their busy lives for only a moment of TV. They need to catch positive phrases with gumption in order to keep their mind on Obama. People, especially Democrats, are people's people and will not get up and out on November 4th unless there is a fire kindling under them to just do it! We don't have lot of time (the ones who need you elected). Please say that again Obama! We need real change!
Sincerely,
Paulina, (mother of six young boys and striving to be a nurse).
It is absolutely ridiculous to see Sen. McCain hide his deficiencies behind the candidature of Palin, by making a sensational rather than a pragmatic choice of a running mate. His action clearly reminded me of the maxim that the mediocre would rather hide than face the responsibility of telling the people that they are not capable.
McCain has now become the man behind the woman or rather a mask that depicts defeatism and sensationalism, while conspicuously offering no tangible solutions to the nefarious and inimical conditions facing the people of this great country.
The fact that he has employed the same exploitation and egocentrism that has typified most of his Washington experience as a senator of the United States of America in choosing a candidate that will grab the attention of the media and public and apparently polish his image rather than complement his inadequacies make a complete nonentity of the choice from a purely pragmatic perspective.
