Environmentalists for Obama

The case against Chevron in Ecuador

Fire Is Born — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 22:46:48 EST

Chevron Using Six Public Relations Firms to Discredit Indigenous Groups In $27.3 Billion Environmental Case In Ecuador Lobbyists – Mac McLarty, John Breaux, Trent Lott, Mickey Kantor, Carla Hills and Others – Charged With Misrepresenting Facts Amazon Defense Coalition
20 November 2009 - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Karen Hinton at 703-798-3109 or karen [at] hintoncommunications.com
Mitch Anderson at 415-342-4783 or mitch [at] amazonwatch.org

Washington, DC – Chevron has retained at least twelve public relations firms and lobbyists to discredit claims of Amazon indigenous groups on the eve of an expected multi-billion dollar judgment against the oil giant in an environmental lawsuit in Ecuador, according to representatives of the tribes in the U.S.

Although Chevron is near the top of the list of highest-spending lobbyists in Washington, the campaign seems to be backfiring. Politico, one of the most influential publications on Capitol Hill, reported this week that Chevron's lobbying was "drawing fire from environmentalists, media ethicists, state pension funds, New York's attorney general, members of Congress, and even Barack Obama when he was a Senator."

The article also quoted Rep. Linda Sanchez (D - CA) as calling Chevron's lobbying "clumsy" and "very heavy handed". Sanchez - who on Tuesday characterized the Chevron lobbying as "extortion" in testimony before Congress – said she plans to write three letters to Members of Congress, blasting what she called the oil giant's "misguided approach" to dealing with the lawsuit from the indigenous groups.

Separately, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is investigating the company to determine if it is misleading its own shareholders about the financial risk from the Ecuador case, where damages are assessed at up to $27.3 billion, Politico reported.

An American legal advisor to the plaintiffs, Steven Donziger, criticized the public relations and lobbying effort. "Chevron is paying huge fees to lobby the U.S. government to inappropriately quash a legal case brought by indigenous tribes in the country where Chevron asked for the trial to be held," said Donziger, who has been working on the matter since it was filed in U.S. federal court in 1993.

The case, which alleges Texaco dumped billions of gallons of toxic waste in the Amazon from 1964 to 1990, was transferred from U.S. federal court to Ecuador in 2002 at Chevron's request. The oil giant filed 14 expert affidavits in the U.S. court praising Ecuador's court system, but later began a campaign to discredit those same courts once the evidence in the Ecuador trial pointed to its culpability.

The public relations firms working for Chevron include Hill & Knowlton, which represented the tobacco industry and – as it did in the debate over tobacco and cancer – has tried to deny a link between oil contamination and cancer; Edelman Worldwide, which is believed to be preparing a Wal-Mart-style political campaign against the indigenous groups in anticipation of an adverse court judgment; Sard Verbinnem, which handles financial press in an effort to stem a budding shareholder revolt against Chevron management for its handling of the case; Robinson Lerer Montgomery, a well-highly connected New York-based agency; Sam Singer and Associates, which handles the matter in the San Francisco area, where Chevron is located; and the Washington-based CRC Public Relations, which helped create a pro-Chevron video by former CNN correspondent Gene Randall to counteract a highly unflattering 60 Minutes segment on the legal case that broadcast earlier in the year.

The Randall video, which did not mention that it was paid for by Chevron, was blasted by the Columbia Journalism Review for "blurring the line between public relations and journalism." The President of CRC, Greg Mueller, spearheaded the Swift Boat campaign against John Kerry and is a former senior aide to Pat Buchanan.

NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory

☮ CR ❤ — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 22:42:09 EST

NOAA (National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration's website has a section dedicated to global warming.

NOAA/ESRL's Global Monitoring Division (formerly CMDL) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, conducts sustained observations and research related to source and sink strengths, trends and global distributions of atmospheric constituents that are capable of forcing change in the climate of Earth through modification of the atmospheric radiative environment, those that may cause depletion of the global ozone layer, and those that affect baseline air quality.

Objectives under the NOAA Decadal to Centennial Change Element applicable to CMDL are:

Characterize the Forcing Agents of Climate Change
Ensure a Long-Term Climate Record
Guide the Rehabilitation of the Ozone Layer
Provide the Scientific Basis for Improved Air Quality

VISION

A laboratory that serves society by providing the best possible information on atmospheric constituents that drive climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion, and baseline air quality.

MISSION

To acquire, evaluate, and make available accurate, long- term records of atmospheric gases, aerosol particles, and solar radiation in a manner that allows the causes of change to be understood.

ESRL/GMD Research Themes

* Climate Forcing

* Ozone Depletion

* Baseline Air Quality

ESRL/GMD Research Groups

* Carbon Cycle Greenhouse Gases

* Halocarbons and other trace species

* Aerosols

* Solar Radiation

* Ozone and water vapor

* Observatory Operations

Related ESRL Research Themes

Data Products and Visualization

* Annual Greenhouse Gas Index

* CarbonTracker

* GLOBALVIEW data products designed to enhance the spatial and temporal distribution of atmospheric observations of CO2, CH4 and other related greenhouse gases.

* Ozone and Water Vapor

* Radiation

* Atmospheric Transport

* Observation Sites Information and maps of sites where GMD makes measurements.

* Ozone Depleting Gas Index

* Interactive Atmospheric Data Visualization

* Current Trends in CO2

* Trace Gases

* Aerosols

* Calibrations of Reference Gases

* Station Meteorology

Sharing my notes.

Rev. Dr. Yb-lem Cueva Oskowitz — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 19:24:15 EST

What is Hospice

Hospice is a specialized program of care for both the with end-stage disease, and for those close to them.

Common Symptoms of End Stage/signs of End of Life:

Agitation

Dyspnea=Dificulty Breathing

Pain = Physical, sociological, emotional, spiritual

Constipation

Diarrhea

Nausea and Vomiting

Anorexia

Insomnia

Sharing my notes from my hospice class for the terminally ill.

Rev. Dr. Yb-lem Cueva Oskowitz — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 19:17:34 EST

Sharing what I recently learned at a hospice seminar.

Hospice care make patients as confortable as possible.

-Hearing is the last thing to go.

(People who are in coma sometimes are concious but cannot move - so be very careful what you say when around a patient with coma -because they might be able to hear everything.)

A living will is something very important for everyone - you can write in it for example: Keep me alive at any cost etc...) and or have a health care Proxy=this person makes decisions for that person about their health, keeping them on respirator, tube feeding, etc...

VICTORY!!! The CLASS act is a class act, and ...

Fire Is Born — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 16:22:00 EST

... means not only the dignity for seniors and people with disabilities. It means "JOBS NOW" for the poorest and most deserving workers (like me) who will spend this mony TODAY. This program is billions of dollars in savings on institutional solutions that are never as good as staying home. Why not? I've been in this business for quite a few years, and really had many reasons to think about it. Trust me! Joe, where would you like to be when you get old? Because you will one day soon...

Finally something out there that made me really happy!

Merry Season, everyone! FIB

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Senate preserves long-term care program

By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR (AP) – 22 hours ago

WASHINGTON — Keeping faith with the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the Senate voted Friday to preserve a new long-term care insurance program to help seniors and the disabled in its health overhaul bill.

But the vote exposed the difficulties Democratic leaders face in persuading their own moderates to stay united behind the sweeping legislation they hope to deliver to President Barack Obama. Eleven Democrats switched and voted with Republicans, warning that the program would turn into a drain on the federal budget and saddle future generations with even more debt.

Republicans fell short in a bid to strike the voluntary insurance plan on a 51-47 vote. They needed 60 votes to prevail. Two leading Democrats who shaped the health care bill, Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus of Montana and Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad of North Dakota, voted with the GOP — underscoring the gravity of the fiscal concerns.

Known as the CLASS Act, short for Community Living Assistance Services and Supports Act, the program would help seniors and disabled people stay in their own homes and avoid going into nursing homes. It had been a long-sought priority for Kennedy, the Massachusetts lawmaker who died this summer of brain cancer.

Workers would pay a modest monthly premium during their careers. If they become disabled, they would get a cash benefit of at least $50 a day. That can help pay for a home care attendant, for supplies and equipment, to make home improvements such as new bathroom railings, or defray nursing home costs. A version of the program is also in the health care legislation passed by the House. The Obama administration supports it.

Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., who led the effort to cut the long-term care plan from the bill, said it would add another unaffordable commitment to a government swamped with debt — and taxpayers would eventually get the bill.

"The CLASS Act is the same old Washington, same old smoke and mirrors, same old games," said Thune. "We are locking in future generations to deficits and debts as far as the eye can see."

But Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., said the program is projected to be fiscally sound for 75 years, based only on the premiums that workers would pay. As a further safeguard, the Senate voted to ensure that funds collected under the plan would only be used to pay out benefits — and not to cover other government obligations.

"This is a very creative idea of using individuals' money to contribute to their own long-term financial security if they're faced with disabilities," said Dodd. "It is a solid program that can make a huge difference for millions of Americans, allowing them to lead independent lives with dignity."

Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Connecticut independent who Democrats are counting on to support the final bill, also voted to strip the long-term care program from the bill.

What I Believe

Rev. Dr. Yb-lem Cueva Oskowitz — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 19:07:43 EST

I am the living breathing temple of God, I do not need to have a temple of wood and stone for my heart is my temple and my church is my community and my mission to God is helping others and serving others unconditionally, and yes, if someone ask me to visit them and explain my ancient beliefs I gladly do and tell them about yoga exercises and yoga breathing for relaxation and may be sale a book or two for little profit for I am an entreprenuer and I enjoy sharing wisdom, but usually all or must of what I do I do, it for free unconditionally with the main purpose of helping others.

...and this is now, not then...

Fire Is Born — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 03:23:07 EST

It's been a while that I watched BMJ. When I began watching tonight in the middle of the program I entered into President Johnson's conversation in 1965 with McNamara on escalation of the war, when the troops there were in the range of 45 thousands. I sat pinned down to my chair till the end of the program.

That "while" wiyhout BMJ was a wasted while. God bless Bill Moyers of the USA! fib

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A Tale of Two Quagmires

This week on the JOURNAL, Bill Moyers looked back some four decades to his experience as a member of President Lyndon Johnson’s administration. At the time, Johnson made a series of fateful decisions to escalate the war in Vietnam, where eventually over two million American military personnel would serve. Estimates indicate that nearly 60,000 U.S. troops – and more than a million Vietnamese – were killed during the course of the conflict.

With an eye on President Obama’s deliberations on whether to deploy more U.S. troops in addition to the 68,000 already in Afghanistan, Moyers presented a montage of recorded conversations and his personal memories of President Lyndon Johnson’s decisions to escalate the war in Vietnam. He said:

“Our country wonders this weekend what is on President Obama’s mind. He is apparently about to bring months of deliberation to a close and answer General Stanley McChrystal’s request for more troops in Afghanistan. When he finally announces how many, why, and at what cost, he will most likely have defined his presidency, for the consequences will be far-reaching and unpredictable. As I read and listen and wait with all of you for answers, I have been thinking about the mind of another President – Lyndon B. Johnson. I was 30 years old, a White House assistant, working on politics and domestic policy. I watched and listened as LBJ made his fateful decisions about Vietnam... Barack Obama is not Lyndon Johnson, Afghanistan is not Vietnam and this is now, not then. The situation is different. But listen – and you will hear echoes and refrains that resonate today.”

The nation is divided about America’s mission in Afghanistan. In a new WASHINGTON POST – ABC News poll, 55% of respondents expressed confidence that President Obama will pick a strategy that will work, but 52% said that the war in Afghanistan has not been worth fighting given the costs versus the benefits.

What do you think?

How does the history of the Vietnam War compare to the present situation in Afghanistan?

What decisions do you think Obama should make regarding Afghanistan? What do you think he's actually going to do? Explain.

U.S. residents fight for the right to hang laundry

Fire Is Born — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:53:38 EST

I say hang'em!

It is human, silent and unobtrusive. I say, ban the mow-blow-and-go "gardeners"- they are not. One of the special pleasures of travel in Central America are the old fashioned loundry rituals. There, it is not question of choice. Laundry is done by women's hands and is hang outside, watched carefuly, hastily carried inside when rain comes. For many women it is the only source of income. These women, I once thought, should also be awarded all those big green prizes that go to somebody else.

I think more hanging laundry would make our USA neighborhoods safer. Perhaps the sight of children playing ouside would return with it. fib

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November 18, 2009 | 1 comments

U.S. residents fight for the right to hang laundry

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U.S. residents fight for the right to hang laundry

Carin Froehlich has help from her granddaughter Ava as they hang some laundry in the front yard of her residence in Perkasie, Pennsylvania, November 12, 2009. REUTERS/Tim Shaffer

By Jon Hurdle

PERKASIE, Pennsylvania (Reuters) - Carin Froehlich pegs her laundry to three clotheslines strung between trees outside her 18th-century farmhouse, knowing that her actions annoy local officials who have asked her to stop.

Froehlich is among the growing number of people across America fighting for the right to dry their laundry outside against a rising tide of housing associations who oppose the practice despite its energy-saving green appeal.

Although there are no formal laws in this southeast Pennsylvania town against drying laundry outside, a town official called Froehlich to ask her to stop drying clothes in the sun. And she received two anonymous notes from neighbors saying they did not want to see her underwear flapping about.

"They said it made the place look like trailer trash," she said, in her yard across the street from a row of neat, suburban houses. "They said they didn't want to look at my 'unmentionables.'"

Froehlich says she hangs her underwear inside. The effervescent 54-year-old is one of a growing number of Americans demanding the right to dry laundry on clotheslines despite local rules and a culture that frowns on it.

Their interests are represented by Project Laundry List, a group that argues people can save money and reduce carbon emissions by not using their electric or gas dryers, according to the group's executive director, Alexander Lee.

Widespread adoption of clotheslines could significantly reduce U.S. energy consumption, argued Lee, who said dryer use accounts for about 6 percent of U.S. residential electricity use.

Florida, Utah, Maine, Vermont, Colorado, and Hawaii have passed laws restricting the rights of local authorities to stop residents using clotheslines. Another five states are considering similar measures, said Lee, 35, a former lawyer who quit to run the non-profit group.

'RIGHT TO HANG'

His principal opponents are the housing associations such as condominiums and townhouse communities that are home to an estimated 60 million Americans, or about 20 percent of the population. About half of those organizations have 'no hanging' rules, Lee said, and enforce them with fines.

Carl Weiner, a lawyer for about 50 homeowners associations in suburban Philadelphia, said the no-hanging rules are usually included by the communities' developers along with regulations such as a ban on sheds or commercial vehicles.

The no-hanging rules are an aesthetic issue, Weiner said.

"The consensus in most communities is that people don't want to see everybody else's laundry."

He said opposition to clotheslines may ease as more people understand it can save energy and reduce greenhouse gases.

"There is more awareness of impact on the environment," he said. "I would not be surprised to see people questioning these restrictions."

For Froehlich, the "right to hang" is the embodiment of the American tradition of freedom.

"If my husband has a right to have guns in the house, I have a right to hang laundry," said Froehlich, who is writing a book on the subject.

Besides, it saves money. Line-drying laundry for a family of five saves $83 a month in electric bills, she said.

Kevin Firth, who owns a two-bedroom condominium in a Dublin, Pennsylvania housing association, said he was fined $100 by the association for putting up a clothesline in a common area.

"It made me angry and upset," said Firth, a 27-year-old carpenter. "I like having the laundry drying in the sun. It's something I have always done since I was a little kid."

(Editing by Mark Egan and Paul Simao)

Read Comments (1) | Post a comment

Sez Me at 05:41 PM on 11/18/09
Has it occurred to anyone that when your neighbours can tell you that you can't hang your laundry out to dry, you might be getting a little short on that "freedom" we are all supposed to enjoy in our "free countries" here in North America?Reply | Report Abuse

Can you help me?

melania — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:02:11 EST

I want buy a mug in ofa store, but I have a problem: I live in Italy, so, I don't understand what I must do.. Can I pay with euro money? Can I buy something in ofa store? Can merchandise come here, in Italy?

Thanks to everybody!!!

From Senator Clair McCaskill

Fire Is Born — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 11:06:18 EDT

I always liked Senator Clair McCaskill. fib

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The Twilight Zone

I feel that I’m in an alternative universe. For eight years some people called anyone who disagreed with the President’s foreign policy or war in Iraq unpatriotic. Then in the course of two weeks, those same people cheer when the United States does not get selected for the Olympics and boo when our President is the unanimous choice for the Nobel Peace Prize. Go figure.

Congratulations Mr. President for standing up to the scorn and derision of your opponents in the election when you firmly stood for the proposition that strength meant being willing to talk to your enemies, not just your allies. Thank you for the confidence and wisdom to say that a hand will be extended when their fist is unclenched. And thank you for understanding that our national security rests on our principles, the example we set for the world, and our alliances along with the excellence and strength of our military, rather than exclusively the latter. God Bless America.

http://clairecmc.tumblr.com/post/208582433/the-twilight-zone

Link to OrganizingforHealthCareBlog

Fire Is Born — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 10:52:34 EDT

I notice that the entire site has problems. There is no access to blogs of ANY group.

Hope it is some re-organization. Below is an URL to Chris Hass. fib

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http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/group/OrganizingforHealthCareBlog

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Free Thursday at the CITA art gallery

Fire Is Born — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 01:22:00 EDT

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Tonight at the White House (for James)

Fire Is Born — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:36:56 EDT

I hope for all of us that the president's job, one day, will include mostly this sort of events. Wouldn't that be a wonderful and normal world? Peace!. fib

ps. Warning: the comments below are from the Earth. Educational, too.

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Obama stargazes from the South Lawn

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After a three-hour meeting on Afghanistan, President Obama gets to have some fun tonight by stargazing with kids and astronauts.

It's Astronomy Night on the South Lawn, and our Oval colleague Traci Watson describes tonight's proceedings (as well as budget challenges facing NASA):

The president will spend this evening not curled up with briefing books but instead studying the heavens through telescopes. This "star party" on the White House lawn is meant to encourage kids to take an interest in science, and to that end Obama and the first lady have invited 150 local middle-school students to stargaze, too.

Unusually in Washington, Wednesday evening was shaping up to be crystal-clear and cloudless -- perfect for viewing the universe.

Much murkier is what's in store for any students who are inspired to become astronauts. In the next few weeks, Obama will have to decide whether to plow billions of extra dollars into NASA's budget. Without that infusion of cash, America's manned space program could not "continue in any meaningful way," according to a September report by space experts convened by the White House.

At the end of the star party, all 21 telescopes scattered across the backyard of the White House will be trained on the moon. That was where astronauts were headed in 2020 in the space plan announced by President Bush in 2004. Now Obama is rethinking that idea.

"We will certainly go back to the moon at some point," John Holdren, the president's science adviser, said as he toured the star party facilities a few hours before sunset. But he couldn't say when.

If Holdren wanted more expert advice, it was easily available. Also on hand for Obama's astronomy night was Sally Ride, the first U.S. woman in space and one of the experts who warned the administration that without significant new funding NASA's human space program is doomed to irrelevance.

Ride, who said she hadn't been at the White House for at least a decade, was enthusiastic about Obama's initiatives.

"There's not very much doubt about the value of science again" in this administration, she said

Ride, an astrophysicist, won't be the only one at the event who knows her way around a telescope. Amateur observers from the Washington area and professional astronomers will be operating the equipment for the first family and students.

Also on hand will be two high school teachers dressed as Galileo and Newton, operating replicas of the telescopes used by those early stargazers.

"We're either really cool or really crazy," said Dean Howarth, a teacher at McLean High School in McLean, Va., who gets to play Newton. "If we're not here this evening, it's because the people at the front gate wouldn't let us in.

(Posted by Traci Watson and David Jackson; photo by Pablo Martinez Monsivais, The Associated Press)

New National Parks Director

☮ CR ❤ — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 12:50:57 EDT

Bay Area resident Jon Jarvis takes the helm as national parks director

10/7/09 By Paul Rogers - San Jose Mercury News

n 1976, when Jon Jarvis was just out of college, he took a temporary job with the National Park Service handing out maps about America's bicentennial celebration to tourists on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

Across the 33 years since then he's been a park ranger and superintendent across the West. He's led hikes, held campfire talks, battled forest fires, made arrests, even rappelled down cliffs.

And now Jarvis, 56, a Bay Area resident, is heading back to Washington D.C. for his dream job — as President Obama's new national parks director.

Confirmed by the U.S. Senate on Sept. 24, the Pinole resident has worked since 2002 at the National Park Service's regional headquarters in Oakland, supervising all 54 national park units in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Nevada and Hawaii.

A biologist by training, on Tuesday he said in an interview he plans to increase scientific research in national parks, extend their educational role to put more rangers in school classrooms and broaden the parks' appeal to America's growing ethnic populations.

Like many long-time national parks staff members, Jarvis was buoyed following last week's PBS broadcast of filmmaker Ken Burns' six-part, 12-hour series "The National Parks: America's Best Idea." Many parks advocates hope the series will inspire a renewed interest in parks and lead to public demand for funding increases and expansion of the system.

"National parks show us, as Wallace Stegner said, at our best rather than our worst," Jarvis said. "At times like this when the country is faced with a rancorous public debate and a tough economy, people turn to parks. They come to them for quiet and contemplation and family gatherings. I think we are in for great renaissance."

Conflicting mission

The challenges are daunting, however. From Yosemite to the Statue of Liberty to the Everglades, America's 391 national park units are beloved by the American public, yet face a myriad of problems and controversies.

After promising to eliminate a massive backlog of maintenance problems — from leaking museums to cracked roads and overgrown trails — the Bush administration left office with an $8 billion maintenance backlog in the national park system.

The park service's mission, dating back to its origin in 1916, is to preserve America's most spectacular natural heritage and to provide for public recreation. That goal continues to spark deeply felt conflicts. How many snowmobiles should be allowed in Yellowstone? How many helicopters over the Grand Canyon?

Jarvis will supervise 22,000 employees and a budget of $2.5 billion. As America's 18th national parks director, he is the face of the agency visited each year by 275 million people.

Environmentalists praised the selection of Jarvis, calling him a strong advocate for conservation and science in parks.

"We're elated that such a committed, knowledgeable individual has been chosen," said Ron Sundergill, Pacific region director of the National Parks Conservation Association, a advocacy group based in San Francisco. "The background he has is perfect for the job."

Long experience

A native of Virginia, Jarvis grew up hunting, fishing and hiking with his father and brother in Shenandoah Valley. He earned a degree in biology from William & Mary college in 1975, then drove across the country and camped in Yellowstone, Glacier and Olympic national parks.

After the short stint working on the National Mall, he became a ranger at various parks including Oregon's Crater Lake, a resources supervisor at North Cascades, and in the 1990s served as superintendent of Craters of the Moon National Monument in Idaho, then Wrangell-St. Elias National Park in Alaska and Mount Rainier National Park in Washington.

Jarvis, said Tuesday he would like to see the creation of at least two new park units. One would commemorate farm labor leader Cesar Chavez, and another, at Port Chicago near Martinez, would mark a 1944 Naval explosion that killed 320 people and led to racially charged mutiny trials for 50 sailors who refused to work in the dangerous conditions.

He said the issue of snowmobiles in Yellowstone, where after several lawsuits over noise and smog, there is a daily limit of 318, is "far from settled." And he said he'd like to see Yosemite Valley campsites destroyed in a 1997 flood rebuilt out of the valley, on Tioga Road and other locations, rather than in the valley along the sensitive Merced River.

"Unfortunately, the public's perception is that Yosemite is just the valley," he said. "There are plenty of opportunities to end up with a no-net loss of campgrounds."

Jarvis is one of several Northern California residents to take top jobs in the Obama administration this year, including Energy Secretary Steven Chu, CIA Director Leon Panetta and U.S.Geological Survey director Marcia McNutt.

Obama orders federal government to cut emissions

☮ CR ❤ — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 16:58:19 EDT

10/5/09 by Jeff Mason - Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama ordered federal agencies on Monday to set a goal within 90 days for cutting their greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, the White House said, aiming to "lead by example" in fighting climate change.

The new executive order, signed by the president, mandates agencies across the federal government to "measure, manage, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions toward agency-defined targets," the White House said in a statement.

Other environmental measures such as reducing petroleum use in vehicle fleets by 30 percent by 2020, improving efficiency f water usage by 2020, and increasing rates of recycling by 2015 were also included in the order.

"The federal government can and should lead by example when it comes to creating innovative ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, increase energy efficiency, conserve water, reduce waste, and use environmentally-responsible products and technologies," Obama said in a statement.

Obama's international credentials on fighting climate change have been called into question as chances dim that the Senate will pass a bill mandating emissions cuts across the United States economy by December, when U.N. talks on a global warming treaty take place in Copenhagen.

The White House order may be intended to counter concerns about the president's climate change commitment.

The federal government is the largest consumer of energy in the U.S. economy, the statement noted, occupying nearly 500,000 buildings and operating more than 600,000 vehicles.

The order also calls on the government to "leverage federal purchasing power to promote environmentally-responsible products and technologies."

United Cerebral Palsy Association advocates for the universal coverage

Fire Is Born — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 16:02:26 EDT

I assure you it is very difficult putting yourself in the shoes of someone with cerebral palsy. fib

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Video about history of the Associaition:

http://www.overstream.net/view.php?oid=ruarngm0uusx

Help fight the Right-wingers with me:

Fire Is Born — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 12:31:11 EDT

*** DEADLINE MIDNIGHT TONIGHT -- ONLY $83,231 TO GO. CONTRIBUTE NOW. ***
They rant. Right wingers all over the country spent much of this summer trying to intimidate us by turning open forums into ugly shout-fests. Republican leaders were perfectly happy to encourage this, and while conservative politicians did not themselves exactly rant, they did distort the same, and yes, lie.

I gave my response to these ridiculous tactics at a public meeting in August, and I have since thought that I might have been too harsh -- on dining room tables.

Now you can reinforce the message I gave and send an even stronger one.

With the media closely watching both parties' third quarter fundraising totals, nothing would put fear in the hearts of the right wing extremists who are propagating this kind of nonsense than for us to out-raise them online. Right now we're just $83,231 away from our Million Dollar Goal.

Show your support for President Obama's health insurance reform. Help us raise just $83,231 more by our Midnight Deadline. For every dollar you give, a group of Democrats will match with two dollars of their own.

The lunacy we saw this summer by the right-wing fringe isn't letting up. Following his contemptible outburst at President Obama, Republican Congressman Joe Wilson raised over $2 million in contributions.

But even worse, Wilson's now taking his act on the road, traveling the country to raise money for Republican House Members and candidates. We have to respond.

This is make-or-break time for health insurance reform. With the media closely watching, President Obama needs grassroots Democrats to stand strong. Your support will help us gain the momentum we need to finish the job on health insurance reform.

Contribute $35, $50 or more by MIDNIGHT tonight and your gift will be triple matched by other Democrats.

Thank you,

Barney Frank

P.S. This is make-or-break time for health insurance reform. The media is closely watching to see which side has the momentum. Please give generously.

*A group of Democrats will match your donation today. For every dollar that you donate, these Democrats will donate two dollars of their own.
If you are having trouble with any of the links, cut and paste the following into your browser:
http://www.dccc.org/barneyfrank1

Do You Know That...???

Rev. Dr. Yb-lem Cueva Oskowitz — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 19:53:49 EDT

Do you know that - Our Sweet Father God The Supreme Super Soul who is the Father of all Souls has a special place for each Souls Religions in the Soul World. God is The Creator of all the religions worldwide and all these Religions together are the leaves of that tree of life which all humanity belongs to. Every Religion is just a piece of the puzzle, and all Religions together = The Big Picture.

CBO to Blue Dogs, Public Option Saves BIG $$$

bob-pol — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 11:34:46 EDT

1) The Congressional Budget Office dealt Blue Dogs a blow Thursday by notifying House Democrats that tethering a public option to Medicare reimbursement rates would save the government $110 billion more than a public option in which the government has to negotiate rates with doctors and other health care providers.

The initial projections showed the difference between the two was $65 billion. But this shows it would cost the government a lot more money to heed moderate demands. House Democrats need to trim as much as $200 billion from a bill that most estimates peg at $1.1 trillion in order to meet President Obama's $900 billion target.

An actual robust public option saves money, and it's what the majority of constituents in districts like Rep. Mike Ross's district supports. Will Rep. Mike Ross actually listen to what the CBO says, or act like Senator Kent Conrad in dismissing the CBO's projections about the public option?

2) Competition lacking among private health insurers

By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR (AP) – 1 day ago

WASHINGTON — One of the most widely accepted arguments against a government medical plan for the middle class is that it would quash competition — just what private insurers seem to be doing themselves in many parts of the U.S.

Several studies show that in lots of places, one or two companies dominate the market. Critics say monopolistic conditions drive up premiums paid by employers and individuals.

For Democrats, the answer is a public plan that would compete with private insurers. Republicans see that as a government power grab. President Barack Obama looks to be trapped in the middle of an argument that could sink his effort to overhaul the health care system.

Even lawmakers opposed to a government plan have problems with the growing clout of the big private companies. "There is a serious problem with the lack of competition among insurers," said Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, one of the highest-cost states. "The impact on the consumer is significant."

Wellpoint Inc. accounted for 71 percent of the Maine market, while runner-up Aetna had a 12 percent share, according to a 2008 report by the American Medical Association.

Proponents of a government plan say it could restore a competitive balance and lead to lower costs. For one thing, it wouldn't have to turn a profit.

A study by the Urban Institute public policy center estimated that a public plan could save taxpayers from $224 billion to $400 billion over 10 years by lowering the cost of proposed subsidies for the uninsured, while preserving private coverage for most people.

"Right now, there's no incentive for insurers or big hospital groups to negotiate with each other, because they can pass higher payments on through premiums," said economist Linda Blumberg, co-author of the report.

"A public plan would have the leverage to set lower payment rates and get providers to participate at those rates."

"The private plans would come back to the providers and say, 'If you don't negotiate with me, you're going to be left with only the public plan.'" Blumberg continued. "Suddenly, you have a very strong economic incentive for them to negotiate."

Insurers contend their industry is extremely competitive, and a public plan is unnecessary. About 1,300 carriers operate across the country, although many only have a small share of the market in their states.

"You can have a very competitive market and still have companies with a high market share," said Alissa Fox, a top Washington lobbyist for the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. Fox points to the federal employee health program, which also covers members of Congress. It offers a total of more than 260 options and 10 nationwide plans. Despite all the choices, about 60 percent of federal workers pick a Blue Cross plan. "Insurers need to be of a significant size to best serve their customers and make sure that people get the best value," Fox said.

Nonetheless, lawmakers are concerned. Big insurers are getting bigger. Small businesses in particular have fewer and fewer options for getting coverage.

Congressional investigators this year looked at insurers catering to small employers around the country. The Government Accountability Office found that the median _or midpoint — market share of largest carrier increased to 47 percent in 2008 from 33 percent in 2002.

There's widespread recognition among lawmakers that a health care overhaul should foster more competition among insurers. The debate is over how far to go.

The basic framework lawmakers are looking at would encourage competition, even without a government plan. It calls for setting up a big insurance purchasing pool called an exchange. It would be open, at least initially, to individuals and small businesses. The government would offer subsidies to make premiums more affordable.

Consumers would find it much easier to shop for a plan through the exchange. For one thing, they would be able to readily compare benefits and premiums in different plans. Also, participating insurers would have to take all applicants and not charge higher premiums to those in poor health.

Offering the option of a public plan would supercharge the competition, supporters say.

Blumberg envisions a plan that pays medical providers more than Medicare, but less than private insurance. Her study estimated it could grow to 47 million members, leaving 161 million with private insurance. Even so, that would make the new public plan one of the largest insurers in the country, rivaling Medicare, Medicaid and big private companies such as Wellpoint and UnitedHealthcare.

It's a scenario that gives pause even to traditional adversaries of the insurance companies.

"The fear and concern is that the public plan could become the market-dominant plan," said Dr. James Rohack, president of the American Medical Association. "When you've got the federal government involved, it can infuse money into a plan to keep it solvent even if the premiums are lower than its actual costs."

Snowe, among the few Republican senators still trying to come up with a bipartisan compromise, wants to hold back on creating a public plan for now and give insurers one last chance to show if they can keep costs in check.

That's doesn't go far enough for liberals, who are loath to give the insurance industry tens of millions of new customers supported by taxpayer subsidies.

"It would give the industry a windfall without any countervailing force to require them to lower their costs," said Richard Kirsch, national campaign manager for the advocacy group Health Care for America Now. "The insurance companies could continue to jack up premiums while getting a whole new market."

ref (1) http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2009/09/24/cbo-tells-blue-dogs-that-the-public-option-will-save/

ref( 2) http://www.slate.com/discuss/forums/thread/3148749.aspx

I cannot rest for the cry of these great agonies. ~ E.A.P.

Caring is the Key to Life - Healthcare for All ... Rob [bob-pol]

Yes, Jimmy Carter, Racism Exists- A Year in Photos

bob-pol — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 23:44:14 EDT

Our gracious leader is truly a Man of Peace who turns the other cheek, or he would have a few reasons to get angry.

A few examples over the past year -

Rob [bob-pol] racggg@gmail.com

I've had it!

Fire Is Born — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 17:51:26 EDT

END WAR ON DRUGS! BASTA. NO SOCIAL REFORMS WILL HELP AS LONG AS THIS GOES ON. fib

ps. as a recovering addict of alcoholic preference, i know how tough it has been to recover from my legal addiction. what hope am i going to offer to my active adict friends? this?! fib

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Gunmen kill 10 at Mexico drug treatment center By ALICIA A. CALDWELL,

Associated Press Writer Alicia A. Caldwell,

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico – Gunmen burst into a drug treatment center in the northern Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez and shot to death 10 people, the second such mass killing this month.

Police say nine men and one woman were killed in the attack just before midnight Tuesday at the Anexo de Vida center in Mexico's most violent city. Two people were seriously wounded.

Enrique Torres, a spokesman for Chihuahua state police, said Wednesday the identities of the gunmen and the motive for the attack have not yet been established.

But officials have said in the past that drug gangs may be using treatment centers to recruit dealers, or may be targeting them to eliminate rivals.

Most of the victims are believed to have been recovering addicts staying at the facility.

"Why? Why them?" said Pilar Macias, weeping after she identified the body of her brother, Juan Carlos Macias, 39. "He was recovering, he wanted to get back on the right track and they didn't let him, they didn't give him a chance."

"This is going to kill my mother," Macias said. "She's very sick and this is going to kill her."

Macias said the mother had encouraged her son to enter the facility for treatment of his cocaine addiction three months ago.

Maria Hernandez also had come to the state prosecutor's office to identify the body of her 25-year son.

"He was good, he didn't hang out with gangs, he didn't have 'narco' friends," she said. "He just began with marijuana, and then ... they killed him."

Pools of dry blood and bloodied footprints were visible Wednesday in the courtyard of the drug and alcohol rehab center where the shooting occurred.

The center is located in a poor neighborhood with dirt streets, some of which were impassable due to recent rains.

On Sept. 2, gunmen lined patients against a wall at another rehabilitation center in Ciudad Juarez and then riddled them with bullets, killing 18.

Five men were killed at another rehabilitation center in June, and in August 2008, gunmen barged into a pastor's sermon at a rehabilitation center and opened fire, killing eight people. Authorities have not said if any of the attacks are related.

Ciudad Juarez has seen the worst of the nation's drug violence, with more than 1,300 deaths this year. The bloodshed has continued despite a buildup in troops since March.

Early Wednesday, gunmen burst into a bar in Ciudad Juarez and shot to death five men, police said. They said they knew of no motive for the attack.

Surging gang violence has claimed 13,500 lives since President Felipe Calderon took office in 2006 and deployed extra soldiers across the country to fight cartels.

Also Wednesday, police in the southern state of Guerrero reported they had found the decomposed bodies of four men by the side of a highway. Because of their poor condition, the cause of death and identity of the bodies has not yet been established.

Voices of The Community - Say it like it is - May God Bless you'll.

Rev. Dr. Yb-lem Cueva Oskowitz — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 19:33:04 EDT

From an E-mail I received - from Harlem.

"Yes you are correct that this oponents have buried themselves in the past, but this Wilson Clown he is not Sorry for what he said at all, as you can see from looking at this clownish youtube video. As long as Obama stays on track and fights for what the people voted for him to fight for on. Republicans are still mad as well as most of the people from the Southern parts of USA. They can not get used to a black president. Get Over It Southerners!!!"

911 Remembered - Great People Make A Great Country

bob-pol — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 10:16:59 EDT

http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/3489/towersa.jpg

SACRED LAND AND SACRED SOULS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snFyt4Kdhl4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdSJFHnbls0

GOD BLESS AMERICA'S BELOVED AND THEIR FAMILIES

THE NEW SLAVERY

Fire Is Born — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 12:01:07 EDT

A must see. fib

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http://www.leap.cc/cms/index.php?name=Web_Links&l_op=visit&lid=152

Imagine, the world without the drug war..

Fire Is Born — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 11:35:50 EDT

"Without the drug war, America's most decimated neighborhoods would have a chance to recover. Working people could sit on stoops, misguided youths wouldn't look up to criminals as role models, our overflowing prisons could hold real criminals, and -- most important to us -- more police officers wouldn't have to die."

http://www.leap.cc/cms/index.php

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Now, digg this:

http://digg.com/d312kVB

A Radical Solution to End the Drug War: Legalize Everything

One cop straight out of The Wire crunches the numbers with Esquire.com's political columnist to discover that America's prohibition of narcotics may be costing more lives than Mexico's — and nearly enough dollars for universal health care. So why not repeal our drug laws? Because cops are making money off them, too.

Killing addicts in rehabilitation centers - recent strategies in the "war on drugs"

Fire Is Born — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 11:08:38 EDT

This has been the fifth attack on a rehabilitaion center in Ciudad Juarez. fib

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Arrest over Mexican drug murders

A senior member of a Mexican drug cartel has been arrested on suspicion of involvement in the murders of 17 people at a rehab centre, reports say.

Jose Rodolfo Escajeda, a suspected hitman and drug smuggler, was held in connection with the murders in the city of Juarez, near the border with Texas.

He has long been on wanted lists held by both the Mexican government and the US Drug Enforcement Administration.

Meanwhile, a state politician and his family were killed in Tabasco state.

The bodies of Jose Francisco Fuentes - a state congressional candidate - his wife and two young sons were found with many bullet wounds at their house in the state capital, Villahermosa, according to state Attorney General Rafael Gonzalez Lastra.

Authorities in the state have in recent days arrested gunmen suspected of working for Mexico's notorious Gulf drug cartel

Turf wars

According to Mexican media reports, Mr Escajeda was arrested by Mexican troops on Friday.

Thought to be a senior figure in the Juarez cartel, he is suspected of involvement in the attack last week in which gunmen stormed into a drug treatment clinic, lined patients up against a wall and killed at least 17 of them.

The BBC's Stephen Gibbs, in Mexico, says the attack shocked even the violence-weary residents of Ciudad Juarez, where there have been an average of 10 murders every day this year.

Juarez is the setting of a vicious turf war, principally between two gangs - the Juarez cartel, and the Sinaloa cartel, which is led by Mexico's most wanted man and reported billionaire, Joaquin Guzman.

The gangs are fighting for control of the local drug market, and smuggling routes into the United States.

About 1,400 people have died in Juarez's drug violence this year.

Thousands of extra police and troops have been deployed in Ciudad Juarez to try to stem the violence.

More than 13,000 people have been killed since the Mexican government ordered the military to take the offensive against the drug gangs in 2006.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/8240213.stm

Published: 2009/09/06 04:17:07 GMT

© BBC MMIX

Health Care Reform Fashion Show!

Kate Goldwater — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 21:55:19 EDT

To show support for Obama's Health Care Plan, AuH2O is hosting a Health Care Reform Fashion Show for Fashion Week. It will be outside the store (84 E. 7th Street b/t 1st and 2nd) on Sunday, September 13th, at 5pm. Here are the details:

Where: Outside AuH2O (84 E. 7th Street b/t 1st and 2nd aves)- Sidewalk Runway!
When: Sunday, September 13, 5pm
What: Models in Health Care Reform and Public Option shirts and dresses
FREE Health Care Reform BUTTONS
FREE Obama EARRINGS for the first 25 people!

There will also be a table where we will be handing out info on Obama's plan and why we're in favor of it. We'll provide information on how to call your senators and encourage them to vote for it, and we'll have a letter of support everyone is welcome to sign that we'll send to the President.

Models will be walking in AuH2O for Health Care Reform tops, which are hand stenciled and made from old clothing, as always. Shirts will be available for $20 and dresses will be $40, and the proceeds will go to paying my medical expenses and hopefully getting insurance in the future!

There will also be a live band and a DJ! The Curtana Veil, which is Ryan Kanterman, David Kaplan, and Chris Wall, will play a few songs (see this video of my favorite song) and Avi Flombaum will DJ the fashion show.

For more details, go to blog.auh2odesigns.com or email kate -at- auh2odesigns.com

Health Care Pass it on!

Carole — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 20:40:53 EDT

No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because they get sick. If you agree, please post this as your status for the next 24 hours.

Compassion and Health Costs Reconciled by a PUBLIC OPTION

bob-pol — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 02:26:45 EDT

Ted Kennedy- Everyone's Senator.

"We shared about the exciting work the NJ Library for the Blind and Handicapped is doing to help support the independent business owners. Highlights of the day included a visit from NJ Congressman Rush Holt and an impromptu reading by Senator Edward Kennedy." (http://www.flickr.com/photos/thewordblog/650915336/)

Ted Kennedy on HEALTHCARE, "We are going to make healthcare what it should be - a fundamental right for all, rather than an expensive privilege for the few".

Who are the uninsured? http://www.truthout.org/082309Z

Up to 46 million Americans are uninsured, because they are unemployed, or their employer does not provide cover, or because they do not qualify for existing government-funded healthcare. People 65 and older can qualify for Medicare, the poor can qualify for Medicaid, veterans and members of the military can qualify for Veterans Health Administration and Tricare and children can be covered under a programme called SCHIP. Those left out by the system include the young just entering the workforce, the self-employed, the unemployed and people who work for small businesses.

Comparison of Canada's Health Care Plan http://www.truthout.org/082709A

It might be helpful for Americans to know about Canada's program. Here are some essential facts.

1. It is a single-payer system, meaning that the government - federal and provincial - pays the bills. But many providers - clinics, hospitals, diagnostic services, etc. - are privately owned. They are reimbursed for services just as doctors - who are mostly incorporated - submit for fees.

2. You get to choose your doctor.

In 2005, all the provincial government leaders reconfirmed their commitment to The Canada Health Act's key principles: that Canadians have the right to timely, high quality, effective and safe health services on the basis of need, not ability to pay, and regardless of where they live or move in Canada. They also committed to a system that is sustainable and affordable and that will be there for future generations.

Why We Need a Public Health-Care Plan in the Unites States http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124580516633344953.html

Without a public option, the other parties that comprise America's non-system of health care -- private insurers, doctors, hospitals, drug companies, and medical suppliers -- have little or no incentive to supply high-quality care at a lower cost than they do now.

Which is precisely why the public option has become such a lightening rod. The American Medical Association is dead-set against it, Big Pharma rejects it out of hand, and the biggest insurance companies won't consider it. No other issue in the current health-care debate is as fiercely opposed by the medical establishment and their lobbies now swarming over Capitol Hill. Of course, they don't want it. A public option would squeeze their profits and force them to undertake major reforms. That's the whole point.

Critics say the public option is really a Trojan horse for a government takeover of all of health insurance. But nothing could be further from the truth. It's an option. No one has to choose it. Individuals and families will merely be invited to compare costs and outcomes. Presumably they will choose the public plan only if it offers them and their families the best deal -- more and better health care for less.

Private insurers say a public option would have an unfair advantage in achieving this goal. Being the one public plan, it will have large economies of scale that will enable it to negotiate more favorable terms with pharmaceutical companies and other providers. But why, exactly, is this unfair? Isn't the whole point of cost containment to provide the public with health care on more favorable terms? If the public plan negotiates better terms -- thereby demonstrating that drug companies and other providers can meet them -- private plans could seek similar deals.

But, say the critics, the public plan starts off with an unfair advantage because it's likely to have lower administrative costs. That may be true -- Medicare's administrative costs per enrollee are a small fraction of typical private insurance costs -- but here again, why exactly is this unfair? Isn't one of the goals of health-care cost containment to lower administrative costs? If the public option pushes private plans to trim their bureaucracies and become more efficient, that's fine.

Critics complain that a public plan has an inherent advantage over private plans because the public won't have to show profits. But plenty of private plans are already not-for-profit. And if nonprofit plans can offer high-quality health care more cheaply than for-profit plans, why should for-profit plans be coddled? The public plan would merely force profit-making private plans to take whatever steps were necessary to become more competitive. Once again, that's a plus.

Critics charge that the public plan will be subsidized by the government. Here they have their facts wrong. Under every plan that's being discussed on Capitol Hill, subsidies go to individuals and families who need them in order to afford health care, not to a public plan. Individuals and families use the subsidies to shop for the best care they can find. They're free to choose the public plan, but that's only one option. They could take their subsidy and buy a private plan just as easily. Legislation should also make crystal clear that the public plan, for its part, may not dip into general revenues to cover its costs. It must pay for itself. And any government entity that oversees the health-insurance pool or acts as referee in setting ground rules for all plans must not favor the public plan.

Finally, critics say that because of its breadth and national reach, the public plan will be able to collect and analyze patient information on a large scale to discover the best ways to improve care. The public plan might even allow clinicians who form accountable-care organizations to keep a portion of the savings they generate. Those opposed to a public option ask how private plans can ever compete with all this. The answer is they can and should. It's the only way we have a prayer of taming health-care costs. But here's some good news for the private plans. The information gleaned by the public plan about best practices will be made available to the private plans as they try to achieve the same or better outputs.

As a practical matter, the choice people make between private plans and a public one is likely to function as a check on both. Such competition will encourage private plans to do better -- offering more value at less cost. At the same time, it will encourage the public plan to be as flexible as possible. In this way, private and public plans will offer one another benchmarks of what's possible and desirable.

Mr. Obama says he wants a public plan. But the strength of the opposition to it, along with his own commitment to making the emerging bill "bipartisan," is leading toward some oddball compromises. One would substitute nonprofit health insurance cooperatives for a public plan. But such cooperatives would lack the scale and authority to negotiate lower rates with drug companies and other providers, collect wide data on outcomes, or effect major change in the system.

Another emerging compromise is to hold off on a public option altogether unless or until private insurers fail to meet some targets for expanding coverage and lowering health-care costs years from now. But without a public option from the start, private insurers won't have the incentives or system-wide model they need to reach these targets. And in politics, years from now usually means never.

To get health care moving again in Congress, the president will have to be clear about how to deal with its costs and whether and how a public plan is to be included as an option. The two are intimately related. Enough talk. He should come out swinging for the public option.

Mr. Reich, professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and former Secretary of Labor under President Clinton, is the author of "Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life" (Alfred A. Knopf, 2007).

Ted Kennedy - Goodbye Camelot

bob-pol — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 16:11:54 EDT

A few photos I took of TV screen of Funeral services for Sen. Edward M. Kennedy Thursday, August 27.

Ted Kennedy's Final Exit from his famous Hyannis Port house.

Kennedy Family watches as Ted's coffin is loaded into hearse.

Camelot- Caroline's loving "goodbye touch" to uncle Ted.

Tribute to the best Senator who has ever served.

God Bless Ted Kennedy and his Family.

Rob [bob-pol] racggg@gmail.com

Have Mexican Dishwashers Brought California to Its Knees?

Fire Is Born — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 15:40:25 EDT

Have Mexican Dishwashers Brought California to Its Knees?

Posted by Daniel Griswold

An article published this week by National Review magazine blames the many problems of California on—take a guess—high taxes, over-regulation of business, runaway state spending, an expansive welfare state? Try none of the above. The article, by Alex Alexiev of the Hudson Institute, puts the blame on the backs of low-skilled, illegal immigrants from Mexico and the federal government for not keeping them out.

Titled “Catching Up to Mexico: Illegal immigration is depleting California’s human capital and ravaging its economy,” the article endorses high-skilled immigration to the state while rejecting the influx of “the poorly educated, the unskilled, and the illiterate” immigrants that enter illegally from Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America.

Before swallowing the article’s thesis, consider two thoughts:

One, if low-skilled, illegal immigration is the single greatest cause of California’s woes, how does the author explain the relative success of Texas? As a survey in the July 11 issue of The Economist magazine explained, smaller-government Texas has avoided many of the problems of California while outperforming most of the rest of the country in job creation and economic growth. And Texas has managed to do this with an illegal immigrant population that rivals California’s as a share of its population.

Two, low-skilled immigrants actually enhance the human capital of native-born Americans by allowing us to move up the occupational ladder to jobs that are more productive and better paying. In a new study from the Cato Institute, titled “Restriction or Legalization? Measuring the Economic Benefits of Immigration Reform,” this phenomenon is called the “occupational mix effect” and it translates into tens of billions of dollars of benefits to U.S. households.

Our new study, authored by economists Peter Dixon and Maureen Rimmer, found that legalization of low-skilled immigration would boost the incomes of American households by $180 billion, while further restricting such immigration would reduce the incomes of U.S. families by $80 billion.

That is a quarter of a trillion dollar difference between following the policy advice of National Review and that of the Cato Institute. Last time I checked, that is still real money, even in Washington.

Daniel Griswold • August 26, 2009 @ 11:34 am

Filed under: Immigration and Labor Markets; Trade

Tags: California, Cato, economic benefits, economic growth, economists, economy, federal government, government, growth, hud, illegal immigration, immigrants, immigration, jobs, latin america, legalization, Mexico, money, National Review, regulation, spending, tax, taxes, Texas, the economist, Trade, undocumented workers, washington, welfare, welfare state

"KENNEDY'S DREAM" - HEALTH CARE FOR ALL

bob-pol — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 11:58:21 EDT

My Idea for a Town Hall Poster: KENNEDY'S DREAM.

Their mother taught them, "To whom much is given, much is required".

"We must care for those who cannot care for themselves", said Ted Kennedy.

47 MILLION AMERICANS have no health insurance. About 80% of them are working but their job provides no insurance and/or they cannot get or afford private insurance.

rob [bob-pol], Caring is the Key to Life.

racggg@gmail.com

147 millions

melania — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 16:42:43 EDT

In Italy, last week, one person won 147 millions of euros at "lotto"..

it's an big big big amount!! I think they are too much money, maybe, if you win 147 millions, you will find reason, you will ruin yourself

Mexico now has one of the world's most liberal laws for drug users

Fire Is Born — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 16:10:06 EDT

Gracias a Dios! Thanks Obama Adminstration for not messing up with the neighbor's business.

Yes we can - too! fib

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Mexico's new drug use law worries US police By JULIE WATSON, Associated Press Writer Julie Watson, Associated Press Writer 47 mins ago MEXICO CITY – Mexico now has one of the world's most liberal laws for drug users after eliminating jail time for small amounts of marijuana, cocaine and even heroin, LSD and methamphetamine.

"All right!" said a grinning Ivan Rojas, a rail-thin 20-year-old addict who endured police harassment during the decade he has spent sleeping in Mexico City's gritty streets and subway stations.

But stunned police on the U.S. side of the border say the law contradicts President Felipe Calderon's drug war, and some fear it could make Mexico a destination for drug-fueled spring breaks and tourism.

Tens of thousands of American college students flock to Cancun and Acapulco each year to party at beachside discos offering wet T-shirt contests and all-you-can-drink deals.

"Now they will go because they can get drugs," said San Diego Police Chief William Lansdowne. "For a country that has experienced thousands of deaths from warring drug cartels for many years, it defies logic why they would pass a law that will clearly encourage drug use."

Enacted last week, the Mexican law is part of a growing trend across Latin America to treat drug use as a public health problem and make room in overcrowded prisons for violent traffickers rather than small-time users.

Brazil and Uruguay have already eliminated jail time for people carrying small amounts of drugs for personal use, although possession is still considered a crime in Brazil. Argentina's Supreme Court ruled out prison for pot possession on Tuesday and officials say they plan to propose a law keeping drug consumers out of the justice system.

Colombia has decriminalized marijuana and cocaine for personal use, but kept penalties for other drugs.

Officials in those countries say they are not legalizing drugs — just drawing a line between users, dealers and traffickers amid a fierce drug war. Mexico's law toughens penalties for selling drugs even as it relaxes the law against using them.

"Latin America is disappointed with the results of the current drug policies and is exploring alternatives," said Ricardo Soberon, director of the Drug Research and Human Rights Center in Lima, Peru.

As Mexico ratcheted up its fight against cartels, drug use jumped more than 50 percent between 2002 and 2008, according to the government, and today prisons are filled with addicts, many under the age of 25.

Rojas has spent half his life snorting cocaine and sniffing paint thinner as he roamed Mexico City's streets in a daze. Most days he was roused awake by police demanding a bribe and forcing him to move along, he said.

"It's good they have this law so police don't grab you," said Rojas, whose name, I-V-A-N, is tattooed across his knuckles.

Rojas hit bottom three weeks ago when he could not score enough money for drugs by begging and found himself shaking uncontrollably. He accepted an offer for help from workers from a drug rehabilitation center who approached him on the street.

"Drugs were finishing me off," said Rojas, whose 13-year-old brother died of an overdose eight years ago. "I lost my brother. I lost my youth."

Juan Martin Perez, who runs Caracol, the nonprofit center helping Rojas, said the government has poured millions of dollars into the drug war but has done little to treat addicts. His group relies on grants from foundations.

The new law requires officials to encourage drug users to seek treatment in lieu of jail, but the government has not allocated more money for organizations like Caracol that are supposed to help them.

Treatment is mandatory for third-time offenders, but the law does not specify penalties for noncompliance.

"This was passed quickly and quietly but it's going to have to be adjusted to match reality," Perez said.

Supporters of the change point to Portugal, which removed jail terms for drug possession for personal use in 2001 and still has one of the lowest rates of cocaine use in Europe.

Portugal's law defines personal use as the equivalent of what one person would consume over 10 days. Police confiscate the drugs and the suspect must appear before a government commission, which reviews the person's drug consumption patterns. Users may be fined, sent for treatment or put on probation.

Foreigners caught with drugs still face arrest in Portugal, a measure to prevent drug tourism.

The same is not true for Mexico, where there is no jail time for anyone caught with roughly four marijuana cigarettes, four lines of cocaine, 50 milligrams of heroin, 40 milligrams of methamphetamine or 0.015 milligrams of LSD.

That's what concerns U.S. law enforcement at the border.

"It provides an officially sanctioned market for the consumption of the world's most dangerous drugs," San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore said. "For the people of San Diego the risk is direct and lethal. There are those who will drive to Mexico to use drugs and return to the U.S. under their influence."

Don Thornhill, a retired Drug Enforcement Administration supervisor who investigated Mexican cartels for 25 years, said Mexico's rampant drug violence will likely deter most U.S. drug users, and the new law will allow Mexican police to focus on "the bigger fish."

The Bush administration criticized a similar bill proposed in Mexico in 2006, prompting then-President Vicente Fox to send it back to Congress. But Washington has stayed quiet this time, praising Calderon for his fight against drug cartels — a struggle that has seen some 11,000 people killed since Calderon took office in 2006.

"We work with Mexico every day to combat illegal drugs and cartel violence," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said when asked about the law. "And we look forward to continuing that cooperation."

_____

Associated Press writers Marco Sibaja in Brasilia, Vivian Sequera in Bogota, Harold Heckle in Madrid, Elliot Spagat in San Diego, Olga Rodriguez in Mexico City and Matt Lee in Washington contributed to this report.

ted

melania — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 16:01:44 EDT

I'm so sad for ted's dead..it was an great person, with him, it go away the kennedy dynasty.

It's terrible the kennedy's history....john, bob, john jr, and now, ted..

Maybe, the great people, they are fated to do an ugly dead, they are fated to have an ugly end..

they are so great, so beautiful in their life, and so bad in their dead...

Ted Kennedy Made His Mark in Life and Politics

bob-pol — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 02:45:20 EDT

Ted Kennedy, Man of Great Compassion moves on ... to his Heavenly Reward.

http://img387.imageshack.us/img387/3937/obama3kennedysrh7.jpg

from Boston Globe (1):

No senator in history, many now say, was able to be both his party's most forceful spokesman for its causes and the leader who cajoled colleagues of both parties into agreement.

In what once seemed like a premonition, President John F. Kennedy at his inauguration had given his youngest brother a silver cigarette box engraved with the biblical words from Matthew: "And the last shall be first."

Ted Kennedy did not succeed in following his brother's path, either in cultivating a faultless image or in wielding the powers of the presidency. But by the early 21st century, the achievements of the younger brother would be enough to rival those of many presidents.

That day on the Hyannis Port porch, his father-in-law's advice to relax and bask in his hard-won glory was also prescient. A year later, Kennedy would be diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor.

But then, as always in his turbulent life, Kennedy looked to his moorings: the Senate and the sea. He would meet cancer the way he met so many challenges.

He would keep working, and he would keep sailing.

http://img387.imageshack.us/img387/1248/obamakennedylaughca8.jpg

Our Ted, champion for the people, had seen great success, and had reason to Smile,

(1) from Boston Globe, A seven-part series on the Massachusetts senator ,,http://www.boston.com/news/specials/k ennedy/

May God Bless Ted and his Loved Ones,<Rob [bob-pol] racggg@gmail.com

Sharing my Journal notes from my notebook with y'all.

Rev. Dr. Yb-lem Cueva Oskowitz — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 20:41:37 EDT

Caring for people with arthritis and caring for yourself.

Aspirin or ibuprofen can give one irritation and/or heartburn.

Encorage others to become active.

Gentle exercises, and activities such as meditation and or Yoga can help to reduce the effects of arthritis. Follow the care plan instructions of your health care provider carefully, and don't forget to use canes or other walking aids as needed.

Yoga - TM

Rev. Dr. Yb-lem Cueva Oskowitz — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 21:04:48 EDT

The Yoga of Wisdom - (adapted from the Gita chapter 4) - when a person is free from attachments and the mind is rooted in wisdom everything he wants to do is to worship the Creator. People who practise Yoga pray to the Creator when they pray/Meditate to The Supreme Soul. God likeness is attained by all those who see the Creator in every action. Some people who practise Yoga offer their senses in the fire of self-abnegation and all actions of the senses and of breath in the fire which is kindled by wisdom of the yoga of self-restraint, and offer their studies of the Veda scriptures, and wisdom to the Creator=Baba=Sweet Father God.

The real Yoga person is one who is unselfish.

Enlightment

Rev. Dr. Yb-lem Cueva Oskowitz — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 20:24:16 EDT

Emeline Goulden Pankhust was a women's right supporter, and she was arrested, and released 12 times (In 1913); she explained her Martyrdom;

"We know joy of battle .

When we have come out of the gates of prison at the point of Death,

Battered,

Starved,

Forcibly fed as some of our women have been...

Their bodies bruised,

They have felt when the prison bars were broken,

And the doors have opened,

Even at the point of Death,

They have felt the joy of battle,

And the exultion of Victory."

Enlightment

Rev. Dr. Yb-lem Cueva Oskowitz — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 20:14:58 EDT

"He prayeth best, who loveth best, all things both great and small; For the dear God who loveth us He made and loveth all."

-Samuel Taylor Coleridge

POTUS grandma gets solar panels on her home in Kenya, compliments of Greenpeace

☮ CR ❤ — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 19:06:13 EDT

POTUS grandma gets solar panels on her home in Kenya, compliments of Greenpeace

8/20/09 Greenpeace.com

Kogelo , Kenya — Barack Obama's grandmother now has solar panels on the roof of her home in Kenya, compliments of Greenpeace.

Greenpeace Solar Generation Activists and local youth organisers installed the panels on "Mama Sara's" home, and also put panels on the Senator Barack Obama School in Kogelo.

The solar installations are part of a 20 day renewable energy workshop hosted by Solar Generation with 25 participants from the Kibera Community Youth Programme and community members of Nyang’oma Kogelo. The program helps young Kenyans learn how solar photovoltaic panels generate electricity, about their installation and maintenance and the fabrication of self-assembling solar lamps and their marketing potential.

Here is what Mama Sarah had to say about the new solar panels on her house: “I am very pleased that my home has been improved thanks to solar energy and I'll make sure my grandson hears about it. Solar power is clean, reliable and affordable, unlike paraffin that is widely used in the area. Also, we now have qualified youth in the village who can help with the upkeep of the systems.”

Climate impacts reach Kenya Kenya, like many other countries in Africa, is on the climate impacts frontline. It has seen a drastic reduction in rainfall in recent years. Drought is amplifying problems in agriculture caused by poor land use and desertification, making Kenya’s large scale hydro power unreliable.

Faced with these challenges, investing in solar energy technologies is a win-win strategy. It strengthens the economy and protects the environment, while ensuring a reliable and clean energy supply. The solar industry is ready and able to deliver the needed capacity. There is no technical impediment to doing this, just a political barrier to overcome as we rebuild the global energy sector.

Yes you can too There are just 108 days left till the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen. The climate deal negotiated in December must ensure developed countries take the necessary steps to cut emissions, tackle climate change as well as ensure that developing countries can continue to grow their economies in a sustainable way.

We are calling for developed world governments to provide US 140 billion a year to tackle the climate crisis, to fund both mitigation and adaptation measures in developing countries.

Mama Sarah Obama flicks on the lights after a Solar power system was installed

Sen. Feinstein on private coverage of preventative services for reproductive care in health reform legislation

Fire Is Born — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 15:28:26 EDT

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Thank you for writing to express your opposition to proposed restrictions on private coverage of preventative services for reproductive care in health reform legislation. I appreciate the time you took to write to me on this important issue, and I welcome this opportunity to respond.

The Senate Finance Committee is currently debating health care reform proposals. One proposal would create a Health Insurance Exchange through which individuals and small businesses could purchase health insurance. In order to assist those not able to afford health insurance, some individuals and families would receive subsidies to help pay for the health insurance. Insurers would provide an essential benefits package, which would be determined by the Department of Health and Human Services after receiving recommendations from a federal advisory committee. The Senate Finance Committee is currently considering restrictions on the insurance packages offered in the Exchange, specifically restricting preventative services for reproductive care, including abortion.

I share your concerns about the proposed restrictions, and I have contacted Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) to express these concerns. These restrictions would leave many American women worse off than they are today. I believe that reproductive health services should be treated no differently than any other health care service or benefit in the current health care reform discussions. While I understand that many individuals may not want to purchase health insurance that covers reproductive services, everyone should have the opportunity to select health insurance without those services restricted.

I support preventative reproductive care because I believe that services such as family planning are incredibly valuable. Please know that I will keep your comments in mind as I continue to review health care reform legislation in the 111th Congress.

Again, thank you for writing. If you have any further questions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact my Washington D.C. office at (202) 224-3841. Best regards.

Sincerely yours, Dianne Feinstein
United States Senator

Further information about my position on issues of concern to California and the Nation are available at my website http://feinstein.senate.gov/public/. You can also receive electronic e-mail updates by subscribing to my e-mail list at http://feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ENewsletterSignup.Signup.

Practical Ancient Yoga

Rev. Dr. Yb-lem Cueva Oskowitz — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 20:07:28 EDT

ü Raja Yoga nFree yourself from all of negativities. nExperience from Purity and Wisdom. nThe Teachings of Raja Yoga can help The Soul break away from all bondages – and make the person free from ignorance – with knowledge – intellect and intense meditation knowledge from God = The Fruit Of The Tree Of Life nMeditation is the key to change yourself and to change the world. nMeditation is the seed for self change and world change. nLet the consciousness be focus on The Self = Soul. nGod = The Seed of the entire tree – radiating the ocean of: nLight nMight nPeace nClarity nWhen we reach the point of purity of The Soul, -we reach peace, and become as God The Father. nThen ones consciousness becomes unlimited, and one can see the whole entire tree spread before him/her. nWhen one understands that ones power and strength comes from The Seed = God The Father, and that thru meditation one can transform The Self and The World. nThe people are the world and when they change, then the world will change. nThe Tree Of Life – has to do with the intellect and the applied knowledge of Ancient Yoga Wisdom = Practical Change. nThis knowledge of ancient Yoga wisdom – is not just something for one to talk about with other – but to actually become it through the transformation of The Soul – into a Deity Soul. nThrough the power of knowledge, God transform us from a Human Being – into a Brahmin – and into a deity. nThe Tree of Life = Human Beings = God The Self = The Universal Life Force and The Seed of It all. üAncient Cabbalistic WisdomnElohim = It is one of the ten names of God the word Elohim is used often in the Hebrew Bible. nEin Sof = the word, is the cabbalistical name of God, and it means "without End" in Hebrew. nEin Sof Or = It means the light that was emanated from the Divine God/Ein Sof in the act of creation of Our Universe. nThe Hebrew Bible = It is the Old Testament known as Torah, it consist of the first five books of the bible = Books of Moses and also the books of the other Prophets plus the book of the psalms. nKite = Crown = It is the first sefira on the Tree of Life. nHochma = Wisdom = It is the second sefira on the Tree of Life. nBin The Original Psalm 23 of David ah = The third circle on The Tree of Life. nTree of Life = Human Being nHesed = Loving-kindness = It is the fourth sefira on the Tree of Life. nGevurah = Strength = It is the fifth sefira on the Tree of life. nTiferet = Beauty = It is the sixth sefira on the Tree of Life. nNetzach = Victory = It is the seventh sefira on the Tree of Life. nHod = Splendor = It is the eighth sefira on the Tree of Life. nYesod = Foundation = It is the ninth sefira on the Tree of Life. nMalkhut = Majesty = It is the tenth sefira on the Tree of Life. nTree of Life = It is the most important symbol of cabbala, for it is believed to have ten circles and twenty-two paths that connect them and keep them connected even though there exist strong forces of Creation continuously. nIt is believed that God formed and destroyed seven Universes previous to creating the one in which we at the present time live in. nThis means that our souls have been to this earth seven times previously and back to the Golden Age. nThese is actually the eighth time of the cycle of our souls. ( Each cycle of the souls last 5000 years) nCabbalistic wisdom have accepted the theory that our Universe is based on the idea in relation to principles of balance and harmony. üA Soul is a Seed Of God The Father and belonging to the tree of life – One must strive to become perfect, become as God. üWhenever you do anything good to help others don't look out for a reward, but instead do it from your heart, and do it unconditionally and God will reward you later. üTivamukti Yoga
This Yoga method focused on spiritual teachings, postures, chanting, meditation, music, readings, some light posture exercises, and are all incorporated into one class.

From Time: 5 truths about health care in America

Fire Is Born — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 01:27:30 EDT

Very interesting and well presented. I wish we learned this much and this way watching television. fib

http://www.time.com/time/2008/health_care/index.html

Facts - Why Health Care Reform Is Vital. The Way I See It-Research.

Rev. Dr. Yb-lem Cueva Oskowitz — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 22:25:10 EDT

Do you know that person E (I will not say names-just in general based on real facts of my friends) Is a senior citizen lady who has a stroke and diabetis 2. Well, You see, person E went to the foot doctor's office and the foot doctor prescribed her a nail fungus medicine that cost 100 dollars -99.99, and so, this medicine that she needs is not cover by medicare or medicaid which she has but it must be paid cashed (Duane Read said) so I called person E foot doctor for the lady who because of the stroke her speach is not quite that clear and explained that the lady cannot afford the 100 dollars medicine - thank God the Foot Doctor said he is going to try to see if he can prescribe her another medicine that is cover by medicaid. Well this lady she cannot afford this medicine for her toe nail fungus infection and she happens to be a diabetic and lives in a city project, it is a Shame that my friend this lady cannot afford the Good 100 dollars medicine that she soo much need specially her being a diabetic. So you see so many people go without their must needed medications because the medicines are not cover by medicaid nor medicare nor HMO's or either they have to get another medicine that is not as effective. This is so wrong, all human beings rich or poor should be able to get the best medicines and treatment possible.

Sincerely

Mary

Yb-lem Oskowitz aka Mary

You See, This is Why I Believe and Support President Obama's Health Reform and I had put a sticker to my Packet book that reads Health Reform NOW -So that everyone in my community can see it. (Queens - NY, )

Baracko is My President, compassionate, just, fair he promise change and progress I Know In my Heart that my Dear pal will grant poor little old me the tax Pardon so I can move on and get a real J.O.B.

Rev. Dr. Yb-lem Cueva Oskowitz — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 21:06:29 EDT

üP nIt is a view of the Universe and of God which suggests that God is the same as all living and inanimate objects in the Universe. nPantheism sees God as a part of all things, as if there were an spark of divinity in everything, and therefore, that everything in the Universe is a part of God. nIt is a theory tell us that there is a Divine Spirit throughout the Universe which is part of the Divine Spirit Of God, and that there is an all powerful external God who controls the Universe and provides guidance on how human beings should conduct their lives. nTherefore if all living things are part of The Divine Spirit, then this philosophical thought carries a number of implications for human conduct. nThen it can be said that the way in which human beings treat the environment and plants, for example, must be affected by a view which sees plants as being part of God, and equally well, if we mistreat a human being than we also mistreat God.

-Pantheism Theory

Believe it or not

Rev. Dr. Yb-lem Cueva Oskowitz — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 20:56:39 EDT

üThe Prophet Jesus was a Sage; he used to teach people by telling them stories (parables).
Mark 4: 33-34 in The Bible’s New Testament say, “And with many such parables He (Jesus) did not speak to them, and when they were alone, He explained all things to His disciples”. üJesus was a Sage and a free thinker, someone who in his own way rebel against the teachings of his time such as corruption of the church back then, and the exploitation and persecution of the Jewish community by the Romans. üSo, tired of what was going on back then, one day, over 2000 years ago, the young man, Prophet Jesus, decided to do something about it, and he proclaimed himself The King of Israel and The Son of God. He knew that this act will later cause for him to be arrested and even killed. nPeople back then saw Jesus as a Revolutionary Savior who was sent from God to save them from both the church and the Romans, but later when people realized that Jesus was not going to actually fight The Romans physically or organized some kind of revolt, the people became angry against Jesus, and quite scare of the Romans and the church leaders to turn against them, and so, they decided to turn him in, and accused him. üJesus used sarcasm by calling Himself a King of Israel, making The Romans look silly, and by calling Himself God (Hinduism and Greek Philosophical concepts God=The Self), He challenged the church. üFrom The age of 13-33 it is believed that Jesus was at the Himalayas becoming a Yogi.
He was a very brave and courage's young man, and he stood his ground for what he believed even if this would had result in his death. nOn the other hand, the people in Jerusalem did not like Jesus, and this included his own family.
This was the first time in many years that the people of Jerusalem had actually accepted him as a prophet of God; at that time people were very upset at The Romans and at The Church, and many kept their old beliefs such as that in Jerusalem one of their old rituals where to scarify a good man or their first male sons to Baal and other Gods for protection and good luck. nSo, the results were some people shouting, a few days later, crucify him and others shouting do not crucify him. Nevertheless, Jesus was a wise and brave young man who meant well, and above all he was just as human as you and me. n1 Timothy, this book of the New Testament is a leadership manual, for in it Saint Paul counsels Timothy to beware of false religious teachers, public prayer, the role of women, and the requirements for elders. ü2 Timothy is a text that teaches one about endurance in ministry.
Moreover, this book is a combat manual which is designed to build up, as well as encourage Timothy to become bold and steadfast in view of the hardships of spiritual warfare.

"Is It Now a Crime to Be Poor?"

Fire Is Born — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 11:33:09 EDT

No verbal comment. FIB

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August 9, 2009

Op-Ed Contributor

Is It Now a Crime to Be Poor?

By BARBARA EHRENREICH

IT’S too bad so many people are falling into poverty at a time when it’s almost illegal to be poor. You won’t be arrested for shopping in a Dollar Store, but if you are truly, deeply, in-the-streets poor, you’re well advised not to engage in any of the biological necessities of life — like sitting, sleeping, lying down or loitering. City officials boast that there is nothing discriminatory about the ordinances that afflict the destitute, most of which go back to the dawn of gentrification in the ’80s and ’90s. “If you’re lying on a sidewalk, whether you’re homeless or a millionaire, you’re in violation of the ordinance,” a city attorney in St. Petersburg, Fla., said in June, echoing Anatole France’s immortal observation that “the law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges.”

In defiance of all reason and compassion, the criminalization of poverty has actually been intensifying as the recession generates ever more poverty. So concludes a new study from the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, which found that the number of ordinances against the publicly poor has been rising since 2006, along with ticketing and arrests for more “neutral” infractions like jaywalking, littering or carrying an open container of alcohol.

The report lists America’s 10 “meanest” cities — the largest of which are Honolulu, Los Angeles and San Francisco — but new contestants are springing up every day. The City Council in Grand Junction, Colo., has been considering a ban on begging, and at the end of June, Tempe, Ariz., carried out a four-day crackdown on the indigent. How do you know when someone is indigent? As a Las Vegas statute puts it, “An indigent person is a person whom a reasonable ordinary person would believe to be entitled to apply for or receive” public assistance.

That could be me before the blow-drying and eyeliner, and it’s definitely Al Szekely at any time of day. A grizzled 62-year-old, he inhabits a wheelchair and is often found on G Street in Washington — the city that is ultimately responsible for the bullet he took in the spine in Fu Bai, Vietnam, in 1972. He had been enjoying the luxury of an indoor bed until last December, when the police swept through the shelter in the middle of the night looking for men with outstanding warrants.

It turned out that Mr. Szekely, who is an ordained minister and does not drink, do drugs or curse in front of ladies, did indeed have a warrant — for not appearing in court to face a charge of “criminal trespassing” (for sleeping on a sidewalk in a Washington suburb). So he was dragged out of the shelter and put in jail. “Can you imagine?” asked Eric Sheptock, the homeless advocate (himself a shelter resident) who introduced me to Mr. Szekely. “They arrested a homeless man in a shelter for being homeless.”

The viciousness of the official animus toward the indigent can be breathtaking. A few years ago, a group called Food Not Bombs started handing out free vegan food to hungry people in public parks around the nation. A number of cities, led by Las Vegas, passed ordinances forbidding the sharing of food with the indigent in public places, and several members of the group were arrested. A federal judge just overturned the anti-sharing law in Orlando, Fla., but the city is appealing. And now Middletown, Conn., is cracking down on food sharing.

If poverty tends to criminalize people, it is also true that criminalization inexorably impoverishes them. Scott Lovell, another homeless man I interviewed in Washington, earned his record by committing a significant crime — by participating in the armed robbery of a steakhouse when he was 15. Although Mr. Lovell dresses and speaks more like a summer tourist from Ohio than a felon, his criminal record has made it extremely difficult for him to find a job.

For Al Szekely, the arrest for trespassing meant a further descent down the circles of hell. While in jail, he lost his slot in the shelter and now sleeps outside the Verizon Center sports arena, where the big problem, in addition to the security guards, is mosquitoes. His stick-thin arms are covered with pink crusty sores, which he treats with a regimen of frantic scratching.

For the not-yet-homeless, there are two main paths to criminalization — one involving debt, and the other skin color. Anyone of any color or pre-recession financial status can fall into debt, and although we pride ourselves on the abolition of debtors’ prison, in at least one state, Texas, people who can’t afford to pay their traffic fines may be made to “sit out their tickets” in jail.

Often the path to legal trouble begins when one of your creditors has a court issue a summons for you, which you fail to honor for one reason or another. (Maybe your address has changed or you never received it.) Now you’re in contempt of court. Or suppose you miss a payment and, before you realize it, your car insurance lapses; then you’re stopped for something like a broken headlight. Depending on the state, you may have your car impounded or face a steep fine — again, exposing you to a possible summons. “There’s just no end to it once the cycle starts,” said Robert Solomon of Yale Law School. “It just keeps accelerating.”

By far the most reliable way to be criminalized by poverty is to have the wrong-color skin. Indignation runs high when a celebrity professor encounters racial profiling, but for decades whole communities have been effectively “profiled” for the suspicious combination of being both dark-skinned and poor, thanks to the “broken windows” or “zero tolerance” theory of policing popularized by Rudy Giuliani, when he was mayor of New York City, and his police chief William Bratton.

Flick a cigarette in a heavily patrolled community of color and you’re littering; wear the wrong color T-shirt and you’re displaying gang allegiance. Just strolling around in a dodgy neighborhood can mark you as a potential suspect, according to “Let’s Get Free: A Hip-Hop Theory of Justice,” an eye-opening new book by Paul Butler, a former federal prosecutor in Washington. If you seem at all evasive, which I suppose is like looking “overly anxious” in an airport, Mr. Butler writes, the police “can force you to stop just to investigate why you don’t want to talk to them.” And don’t get grumpy about it or you could be “resisting arrest.”

There’s no minimum age for being sucked into what the Children’s Defense Fund calls “the cradle-to-prison pipeline.” In New York City, a teenager caught in public housing without an ID — say, while visiting a friend or relative — can be charged with criminal trespassing and wind up in juvenile detention, Mishi Faruqee, the director of youth justice programs for the Children’s Defense Fund of New York, told me. In just the past few months, a growing number of cities have taken to ticketing and sometimes handcuffing teenagers found on the streets during school hours.

In Los Angeles, the fine for truancy is $250; in Dallas, it can be as much as $500 — crushing amounts for people living near the poverty level. According to the Los Angeles Bus Riders Union, an advocacy group, 12,000 students were ticketed for truancy in 2008.

Why does the Bus Riders Union care? Because it estimates that 80 percent of the “truants,” especially those who are black or Latino, are merely late for school, thanks to the way that over-filled buses whiz by them without stopping. I met people in Los Angeles who told me they keep their children home if there’s the slightest chance of their being late. It’s an ingenious anti-truancy policy that discourages parents from sending their youngsters to school.

The pattern is to curtail financing for services that might help the poor while ramping up law enforcement: starve school and public transportation budgets, then make truancy illegal. Shut down public housing, then make it a crime to be homeless. Be sure to harass street vendors when there are few other opportunities for employment. The experience of the poor, and especially poor minorities, comes to resemble that of a rat in a cage scrambling to avoid erratically administered electric shocks.

And if you should make the mistake of trying to escape via a brief marijuana-induced high, it’s “gotcha” all over again, because that of course is illegal too. One result is our staggering level of incarceration, the highest in the world. Today the same number of Americans — 2.3 million — reside in prison as in public housing.

Meanwhile, the public housing that remains has become ever more prisonlike, with residents subjected to drug testing and random police sweeps. The safety net, or what’s left of it, has been transformed into a dragnet.

Some of the community organizers I’ve talked to around the country think they know why “zero tolerance” policing has ratcheted up since the recession began. Leonardo Vilchis of the Union de Vecinos, a community organization in Los Angeles, suspects that “poor people have become a source of revenue” for recession-starved cities, and that the police can always find a violation leading to a fine. If so, this is a singularly demented fund-raising strategy. At a Congressional hearing in June, the president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers testified about the pervasive “overcriminalization of crimes that are not a risk to public safety,” like sleeping in a cardboard box or jumping turnstiles, which leads to expensively clogged courts and prisons.

A Pew Center study released in March found states spending a record $51.7 billion on corrections, an amount that the center judged, with an excess of moderation, to be “too much.”

But will it be enough — the collision of rising prison populations that we can’t afford and the criminalization of poverty — to force us to break the mad cycle of poverty and punishment? With the number of people in poverty increasing (some estimates suggest it’s up to 45 million to 50 million, from 37 million in 2007) several states are beginning to ease up on the criminalization of poverty — for example, by sending drug offenders to treatment rather than jail, shortening probation and reducing the number of people locked up for technical violations like missed court appointments. But others are tightening the screws: not only increasing the number of “crimes” but also charging prisoners for their room and board — assuring that they’ll be released with potentially criminalizing levels of debt.

Maybe we can’t afford the measures that would begin to alleviate America’s growing poverty — affordable housing, good schools, reliable public transportation and so forth. I would argue otherwise, but for now I’d be content with a consensus that, if we can’t afford to truly help the poor, neither can we afford to go on tormenting them."

Barbara Ehrenreich is the author, most recently, of “This Land Is Their Land: Reports From a Divided Nation.”

“Should I Be Tested for Cancer? Maybe Not and Here’s Why.”

Fire Is Born — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 10:58:35 EDT

Dr. Welch's essay touches upon the uneasy grounds of our health business that I have known from my own experience. I am glad somebody elso wrote it first, and is a physician. FIB

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July 28, 2009

Essay

To Overhaul the System, ‘Health’ Needs Redefining

By H. GILBERT WELCH, M.D.

"The Canadians haven’t figured it out. Neither have the Japanese, the French or the British. No health care system has seriously grappled with the question most fundamental to its task: what constitutes health?

As the United States contemplates an overhaul of its system, maybe we should take a stab at it.

For years the question has been deferred to those with a financial interest in the answer — health professionals entwined with pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology firms, manufacturers of medical devices and diagnostic technologies, free-standing diagnostic centers, surgical centers, hospitals and academic medical centers — a group aptly labeled some 30 years ago by the editor of The New England Journal of Medicine as the “medical-industrial complex.”

It’s an industry that has learned a lot over those years. I know, because I’ve been part of it. And increasingly it has settled on a most convenient answer: health is the absence of abnormality.

In the past, people sought health care because they were sick. Now the medical-industrial complex seeks patients. It encourages those with minor symptoms to be evaluated and urges those who feel well to get “checked” — just to make sure nothing is wrong.

So, if health is the absence of abnormality, the only way to know you are healthy is to become a customer.

But healthy people aren’t great customers; they’re like the people who pay off their entire credit card balance each month. The money is in those in whom an abnormality can be found.

The medical-industrial complex has made that relatively easy to do.

It develops diagnostic technologies able to find smaller and smaller abnormalities. So more and more of us are found to have damaged cartilage in our knees, bulging discs in our backs, and narrowed blood vessels throughout our bodies. And far too many are also found to have “spots” or “shadows” that are seldom significant but are said to be “worrisome.” So more and more of us have knee surgery, back surgery, angioplasty and more diagnostic investigation.

And the medical-industrial complex has another way to find more abnormalities: it simply narrows the definition of normal. Take blood pressure. In the past, relatively few were said to have abnormal blood pressure. Now a normal blood pressure is said to be below 120/80. This means that well over half the adult population of the United States is abnormal. The same is true for cholesterol. And although it involves a smaller portion of the population, narrower definitions of normal are expanding the number of people said to have diabetes and osteoporosis. So more and more of us are treated for these conditions.

Finding more abnormalities has been a great strategy for our industry. But it has been a disaster for health-care costs.

Some believe that finding more abnormalities is the right strategy to improve the nation’s health, but how much it reduces death and disability is open to debate. The new abnormalities being found are generally not severe, but mild: they are not life-threatening, and in many patients they won’t ever produce symptoms. When the benefit of treatment is known, it is known to be small — so small that many people, sometimes hundreds, must be treated for one person to benefit. But more often than not, the value of treating these mild abnormalities is simply not known.

What is known is that others are invariably harmed in the process. Admittedly, the harms are often mild — lightheadedness or fainting from too much blood pressure medication, for example. But occasionally they are more severe, even fatal; last year, for instance, a major study of intensive diabetes treatment was stopped because it caused more deaths.

But while these harms are rare, so are the benefits— if they exist at all. Nevertheless, the medical-industrial complex has systematically exaggerated the benefits and minimized or ignored the harms. The reality is more nuanced: whether a strategy does more good than harm is often a much closer call than is ever advertised.

And then there is a larger question. How does “absence of abnormality” affect our perception of health? This construct is both too narrow and too broad. It’s too narrow because there is more to being healthy than striving to avoid death and disease. Health is more than a physical state of being; it’s also a state of mind.

And it’s too broad because all of us harbor abnormalities. The construct drives the system to look for things to be wrong — a search that will be successful in most of us. We then feel more vulnerable. This induced vulnerability undermines the very sense of well-being and resilience that in many ways defines health itself. Viewing health as the absence of abnormality thus conflicts with the desire for a healthier society.

Furthermore, the strategy has created a host of other problems: doctors who are overwhelmed by the number of ailments their patients allegedly have (and who are often distracted from the most important ones); doctors in training who are increasingly confused about who is really sick and who is not; lawyers who increasingly have a field day with the charge of “failure to diagnose”; patients who get too much treatment or lose health insurance because they been given a new diagnosis; and a frazzled, fearful public adrift in a culture of disease. Oh, and did I mention that it has been a disaster for health-care costs?

If you are one of the millions of Americans adversely affected by the unrelenting growth of health costs — an employer that can’t afford insurance or a patient who can’t afford prescription drugs or can’t find insurance at all — you have to take back responsibility for deciding what health really means, not surrender that decision to “experts” with strong financial incentives.

And even if you are one of the few who doesn’t need to worry about money, you still need to take back this responsibility. Your health may depend on it."

H. Gilbert Welch, a professor of medicine at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice in Hanover, N.H., is the author of “Should I Be Tested for Cancer? Maybe Not and Here’s Why.”

Food for your thought: Why Don't We Globalize Health Care?

Fire Is Born — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 22:34:44 EDT

Since I have been on the move this last decade I have done a lot of medical tourism - in Poland, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. Very helpful, as I was without insurance in this country for a good couple of years. I could not efford to buy COBRA - and Keiser did not want to give it to me in the first place. And I was in a "Let's go!" mood again. Why not globalization? Business is business, after all. FIB

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Why Don't We Globalize Health Care?

By DEAN BAKER

With the rising cost of healthcare now atop the national agenda, one theme rings like a frustrating refrain: healthcare is special, so the tools we use to fix normal economic problems don’t apply. What good is mass production in confronting the complexities of the body? How can cost-benefit analysis grasp the unfixable value of a human life?

There is at least one tenet of modern economic policy, however, that we are excluding from the healthcare debate at our peril: globalization.

It may seem bizarre to suggest that globalization could somehow improve healthcare. After all, the practice of medicine is not only deeply individual, but tightly tied to time and place. Apart from possibly buying drugs from Canada, most people have probably never given any thought to the idea that globalization could have a meaningful impact on healthcare in the United States. But globalization, carefully applied, could reduce costs in the short term and create pressure for the bigger changes our system desperately needs.

There are clear ways to take advantage of lower costs in other countries, making our own system more affordable without diminishing the quality. We could allow more foreign-born doctors to work in the United States, for instance. We could encourage the “medical tourism” that allows Americans to have major procedures performed in other countries, and we could permit Medicare beneficiaries to buy into the lower-cost healthcare systems of other wealthy countries.

Big Oil moves into Peruvian Amazon

Fire Is Born — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 17:41:48 EDT

Weeks after bloodshed, American oil moves into Peruvian Amazon, putting rainforest, possible archeological site at risk

(08/03/2009) "Barely six weeks after a dozen Amazon natives were gunned down by the Peruvian Army in the oil town of Bagua for protesting the cozy relationship between Big Oil and the government of President Alan Garcia, I find myself on the banks of the Mother of God River in Salvacion, Peru, wondering if all those folks died in vain. Any day now, the bulldozers will be moving in as Texas-based Hunt Oil Company – with the full go-ahead of the Peruvian government -- fires its first salvo in its assault against the million-acre pristine rainforest wilderness of the little-known and largely unexplored Amarakaeri Communal Reserve."

Unions To Take On Conservative Groups Health Care Town Halls

Fire Is Born — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 15:22:42 EDT

huffingtonposthttp://bit.ly/VZVd2 - Unions To Take On Conservative Groups Health Care Town Hallsabout 3 hours ago from API

World Breastfeeding Week has begun August 1st

Fire Is Born — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 15:30:52 EDT

A baby girl born on 1 August, the first day of the World Breastfeeding Week, in Malali Hospital, Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan.

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We talk too much about health insurance and not enough about health. I know we need to settle the first issue first, and we are going to win this battle! If we help these coming weeks.

Now, about health - I think that anything that separates Mothers from their infants and babies is the scourge of the modern times, including work outside home and powdered milk. I am serious. What's good for Afghanistan is as good for the United States.

I run upon this issue today because I was also struck couple days ago by the infant mortality rates for Afghanistan (I was looking for Honduras statistics and then swayed elsewhere) - which remain cataclysmic.

here they are:

Under-5 mortality rank

Under-5 mortality rate, 1990

260

Under-5 mortality rate, 2007

257

Infant mortality rate (under 1), 1990

168

Infant mortality rate (under 1), 2007

165

Neonatal mortality rate, 2004

Total population (thousands), 2007

27145

Annual no. of births (thousands), 2007

1314

Annual no. of under-5 deaths (thousands), 2007

338

GNI per capita (US$), 2007

250

Life expectancy at birth (years), 2007

Total adult literacy rate (%), 2000–2007*

Primary school net enrolment/ attendance (%), 2000–2007*

% share of household income 1995–2005*, lowest 40%

% share of household income 1995–2005*, highest 20%

Definitions and data sources

total: 151.95 deaths/1,000 live births

country comparison to the world: 3
male: 156.01 deaths/1,000 live births
female: 147.7 deaths/1,000 live births

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_Afghanistan#Infant_mortality_rate

Have a couple of minutes? Choose which event suits you

☮ CR ❤ — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 11:03:36 EDT

Want to help w/ President Obama's Health Care initiative but don't know how or don't have much time to spare?

Spend a couple of minutes and go to the Obama event page to choose the event that suits your schedule such as:

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/health-care-action-center/?source=feature

    Canvass via Email
    Canvass on FaceBook
    Canvass on Tweet
    Tweet your Senator
    Phone Bank people in your area
    Write a letter to the editor

******************************

The President has vowed that the health reform process will be different in his Administration – an open, inclusive, and transparent process where all ideas are encouraged and all parties work together to find a solution to the health care crisis. Working together with members of Congress, doctors and hospitals, businesses and unions, and other key health care stakeholders, the President is committed to making sure we finally enact comprehensive health care reform.

The Administration believes that comprehensive health reform should:

Reduce long-term growth of health care costs for businesses and government
Protect families from bankruptcy or debt because of health care costs
Guarantee choice of doctors and health plans
Invest in prevention and wellness
Improve patient safety and quality of care
Assure affordable, quality health coverage for all Americans
Maintain coverage when you change or lose your job
End barriers to coverage for people with pre-existing medical conditions

Please visit www.HealthReform.gov to learn more about the President’s commitment to enacting comprehensive health reform this year.

57 progressive leaders stood up for a real public health insurance option. Sign the card to say thanks!

Fire Is Born — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 11:11:59 EDT

I have just thanked my Rep. Barbara Lee, CA. She is precious to have. I don't even have to call her. She knows what people want. fib

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57 progressive leaders stood up for a real public health insurance option. Sign the card to say thanks!

Lynn Woolsey, Raul Grijalva, Carolyn Kilpatrick, Jerry Nadler, Phil Hare, Lucille Roybal-Allard, Keith Ellison, Earl Blumenauer, Mel Watt, Donna Edwards, John Olver, Dennis Kucinich, Laura Richardson, Maxine Waters, John Conyers, Judy Chu, Maurice Hinchey, Hank Johnson, Diane Watson, Jackie Speier, Bill Pascrell, Lloyd Doggett, Marcy Kaptur, Mazie Hirono, Bob Filner, Linda Sanchez, Marcia Fudge, Barbara Lee, Andre Carson, Sheila Jackson Lee, Michael Honda, Jim McDermott, William Lacy Clay, Jim McGovern, Yvette Clarke, Eric Massa, Chellie Pingree, Jesse Jackson, Jr., Elijah Cummings, Bennie Thompson, Gwen Moore, Donald Payne, Fortney "Pete" Stark, Ed Towns, Corrine Brown, Alcee Hastings, Nydia Valezquez, Luis Gutierrez, Grace Napolitano, Albio Sires, John Tierney, Mike Capuano, Chaka Fattah, Jose Serrano, Sam Farr, Bill Delahunt, and Eddie Bernice Johnson.

Single Payer Gets A Vote!!

Fire Is Born — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 02:02:53 EDT

Single Payer Gets A Vote (Updated)

July 31, 2009

"Anthony Weiner is about to be the new hero of the progressive crowd after getting a promise from Nancy Pelosi to debate — and vote — on a single-payer plan to solve health care reform.

Weiner got that promise after he agreed to withdraw an amendment to essentially create Medicare for the whole nation in the Energy and Commerce Committee health care markup session this evening.

The Brooklyn-Queens Rep. looked a little surprised when Chairman Henry Waxman said Pelosi would allow that vote, and made Waxman repeat the deal to be sure it was clear and on the record.

It’s an especially big deal for advocates of a single health care system — who see it as cheaper and simpler than the complicated measure being drawn up — because they have been complaining that they have not even been able to get an airing of their position.

And having the vote of the floor of the House will force members to declare a position, and bring much more attention to the idea.

Update: Weiner, who high-fived Tammy Baldwin after getting the deal, crows in a quick press release:

“It’s a Better Plan and now it’s on Center Stage,” says Weiner

Washington, DC - Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA), Chairman of the Energy & Commerce Committee announced today that Speaker Nancy Pelosi has pledged to give Single-Payer an up or down vote when healthcare reform is considered before year’s end.

Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-NY), Co-Chair of the Middle Class Caucus and member of the Energy & Commerce Committee who led the effort with Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI); Rep. Mike Doyle (D-PA); Rep. Elliot Engel (D-NY); Rep. Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL); Rep. Janice Schakowsky (D-IL); and Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT), released the following statement:

“Single-payer is a better plan and now it is on center stage. Americans have a clear choice. Their Member of Congress will have a simpler, less expensive and smarter bill to choose. I am thrilled that the Speaker is giving us that choice.”

- Michael McAuliff"

Please sign the letter on health care to senators!

Fire Is Born — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 16:42:28 EDT

I like the ad too. fib

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http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/5649/t/4772/content.jsp?content_KEY=2697&tag=pob_pob_tw1

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Senators,

Some of your colleagues, such as Ben Nelson, are delaying action on President Obama's public health insurance option -- which would force private insurers to compete and lower health care costs for your constituents.

This is the latest tactic from an insurance industry that fears competition: Stop reform by stalling it. Kill momentum at all costs.

While 76% of Americans support the public option, sitting Democratic Senators have received $80 million from the health and insurance interests that oppose it.

Senators, which side will you choose? If you side with your constituents, don't delay reform. Keep working until the public option is passed.

We can't afford to wait.

Sincerely,

Crucial vote on single-payer Medicare for All ( H.R.676 ) today!

Fire Is Born — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 14:49:19 EDT

crucial vote on single-payer Medicare for All ( H.R.676 ) - please call

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One week ago, we eagerly anticipated a crucial vote on single-payer Medicare for All ( H.R.676 ) in the House Energy & Commerce Committee, sponsored by Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY). But then seven BlueDogs waged a highly-publicized war against a "robust public option" and the vote was delayed for a full week.

We just learned the vote will be tomorrow ( Friday ). Based on all of your calls, we have nine single-payer Democrats: Tammy Baldwin, Michael Doyle, Eliot Engel, Anna Eshoo, Gene Green, Edward Markey, Janice Schakowsky, Anthony Weiner, and Peter Welch.

Lean Yes
Diana DeGette CO01 202-225-4431
Jane Harman CA36 202-225-8220
Christopher Murphy CT05 202-225-4476
Frank Pallone NJ06 202-225-4671 @FrankPallone
Bobby Rush IL01 202-225-4372 Five more Democrats are leaning single-payer but still uncommitted. Please call each one and give them one crucial reason to support single-payer from our petition:
http://www.democrats.com/single-payer-petition?cid=ZGVtczU0MTkyNWRlbXM=
(Be sure to sign our petition and forward it if you haven't already.)

Be concise and practice in advance so you can speak quickly (or leave a voicemail) because they are getting swamped. Report the results of your calls here:
http://www.democrats.com/single-payer-committee-whip

Public Option Only (or Won't Say)
Rick Boucher VA09 202-225-3861
Bruce Braley IA01 202-225-2911
G.K. Butterfield NC01 202-225-3101
Lois Capps CA23 202-225-3601
Kathy Castor FL11 202-225-3376
John Dingell MI15 202-225-4071
Charles Gonzalez TX20 202-225-3236
Jay Inslee WA01 202-225-6311 @RepInsleeNews
Doris Matsui CA05 202-225-7163
Jerry McNerney CA11 202-225-1947
John Sarbanes MD03 202-225-4016
Bart Stupak MI01 202-225-4735
Betty Sutton OH13 202-225-3401
Henry Waxman (Chair) CA30 202-225-3976 If you have more time, these 14 Democrats support a "public option" at best. But that "public option" (a new government program to compete with private insurance) was disastrously weakened this week by the BlueDogs. They banned the use of Medicare pricing to reduce costs and thereby expand availability. Try to persuade these 14 to vote for single-payer instead of a worthless BlueDog "public option."

Don't let anyone tell you single-payer can't pass: the Kucinich Amendment for a single-payer "state option" passed by a shocking 25-19 bi-partisan majority in the House Education and Labor Committee on July 17. The Weiner Amendment will pass on Friday if enough Democrats vote for it!

A victory on the Weiner Amendment would make a huge difference. Please call as soon as you get this - night or day.

Thanks for all you do!

Bob Fertik

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We Didn’t Just Fail To Support President Obama And Professor Gates; We Failed To Support The Common Sense Values We All Share As Americans.

H. Smith — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 18:46:27 EDT

We Didn’t Just Fail To Support President Obama And Professor Gates; We Failed To Support The Common Sense Values We All Share As Americans.

The president of the United States made a straight forward common sense comment about the Gates’ arrest at a national press conference. I’m sure he assumed that there would be universal common sense understanding throughout the media and our society about the injustice of arresting a middle-aged man within his own home for being rude to a police officer. Sadly the media, law enforcement, political institutions and race baiting public in this society allowed this common sense evaluation to spiral out of control. The minority population in this country has always and will always need a coalition of proactive citizens with a similar sense of values in this society so injustices can be expressed without chaos, political unrest or violence. That has been the basis of every minority civil rights movement of our country. The president acknowledged an obvious injustice at a national press conference and expected common sense police officers, nurses , doctors , teachers, the media, politicians and everyday citizens to understand and support his outrage at the injustice and humiliation Professor Gates endured in his own home. Common sense values dictate that no one would want their dad or grandfather to be arrested in their own home for being rude to the police. But instead, this society debated and continues to debate whether Professor Gates should have been humiliated in such a manner by a professional police officer. President Obama is president of the United States, but he is also a member of a minority group of citizens in this country, and he has to navigate in ways someone who is not a member of a minority will never have to. As a member of a minority group, just as in the civil rights movement, President Obama's voice on injustice in this country, is and will only be as strong and as loud as the courage, strength and volume of the coalition of common folks who elected this president to office. Without common sense folks repeatedly speaking out loudly and confronting an obvious injustice, the president’s voice will be drowned out by the race baiting fringe groups, media and other institutions that know his voice is only as strong as yours. The radical fringe wants everything about President Obama, from birth certificates to pre-school, from friends to religious associations, marriage, political appointments and opinions to revolve around race, so that the voices of common sense folks with common sense values and issues can be drowned out by fake controversies, chaos and political unrest. If we empower the president's voice on common sense issues within this country, we will mute the divide and conquer tactics of these racists fringe elements in our society that surely benefit from political unrest and racial strife in the United States. The president spoke out about an obvious injustice to one of the most respected scholars in the country. It is our responsibility as citizens to back the common sense approach and determination that the president came to, repeatedly and loudly. In this democracy our president is a reflection of who we are and what we represent as a society. If we fail to speak up and support this president’s common sense approach on issues of injustice and policy in this country, the president we elected will have no voice, and neither will we.

H. Smith

I liked this comment on Bill Moyers interview with Trudy Lieberman and Marcia Angell on the health care reform

Fire Is Born — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 20:00:19 EDT

"If you don't believe Moyers and my conclusion that Single Payer is the only way to fix our problems, then read "Why must health reform be isolationist?" at Slate.com and then watch PBS's "Sick Around the World." After that, maybe we can get some sanity in the debate.

Some say ours is the best system in the world. It isn't, we rank 37th in the world.

Taiwan looked & rejected our system: "American health care is not really a system at all. It's a market. In a market, people with money can buy what they want & many people are left out. So we thought, no, we don't want market-driven health care. We want a real system, something that covers everybody & doesn't depend on how much money you have. "

Over 50% of bankruptcies & many foreclosures are caused because of health care.

Art Finley, a West Virginian & TV & radio host living in Vancouver, writes:

"I'm 82, & in excellent health. It costs me all of $57 a month for health care, & it's excellent. I'm so tired of all the lies & b.s. I hear about the system up here in the U.S. media. I now have 20/20 vision thanks to Canadian eye doctors. & I haven't had to wait for my surgeries, either. I read a Canadian Doctor's Wall Street Journal op-ed that said 'Everyone in Canada is covered by a single payer -- the government. But Canadians wait for practically any procedure or diagnostic test or specialist consultation in the public system.' That's sheer b.s."

Posted by: Gregory Mann | July 25, 2009 11:14 AM

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I also liked the idea of Maria Angell to introduce the truly universal program incrementally, and start with expanding the Medicare on everyone above fifty five. Well, that would cover me fore sure. I also remember that until I was fifty I often did not know if was insured or not. At 48 my private insurance lowered my premium! because i made no use of the plan. What happened between 50 and 55 is another story, that would fall in the comments to James's post today, but I will tell it another time. I am afraid I get upset and will get migraine (never heard of them before 50, unless badly hangovered).

And I believe in Bill Moyers.fib

Thursday, July 23, 2009 by CommonDreams.org Spinning Healthcare: A Bad Case of Vertigo by Norman Solomon

Fire Is Born — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 16:48:59 EDT

"(...)

Media accounts keep telling us that the current political debate on healthcare is unprecedented and groundbreaking. But an article in the latest edition of the Columbia Journalism Review, by seasoned healthcare reporter Trudy Lieberman, makes a convincing case that little has changed within the frames of media parameters.

The press "has mostly passed along the pronouncements of politicians and the major stakeholders who have the most to lose from wholesale reform," Lieberman writes. "By not challenging the status quo, the press has so far foreclosed a vibrant discussion of the full range of options, and also has not dug deeply into the few that are being discussed, thereby leaving citizens largely uninformed about an issue that will affect us all."

What we're seeing now is a slightly freshened version of a timeworn tap dance that ranges across a constricted media stage. As Lieberman notes: "Absent from the debate are not only single-payer systems like the ones in England and Canada, but other systems with multiple payers, like ones in Germany and Japan -- or, for that matter, any discussion of why a system that relies on competition among private insurers in The Netherlands hasn't resulted in lower prices for consumers, as advocates claimed."

The variety of healthcare delivery systems abroad, in industrialized countries, spans a common assumption -- healthcare as a human right -- an assumption that doesn't cut the mass-media mustard in the United States. "What's common to all these systems," Lieberman points out, "is that everyone is entitled to healthcare and pays taxes to support the system, and medical costs are controlled by limits on spending. The specter of a system that takes a significant bite out of stakeholder profits in the U.S. is the real reason the debate is so restricted."

As Trudy Lieberman puts it, "Reform efforts have danced around this impasse for decades."

That helps to explain why so much media coverage of healthcare reform proposals is apt to be so baffling to most readers, listeners and viewers. When the big elephant (or, if you will, donkey) in the national newsroom is dependent on the insurance, pharmaceutical and hospital industries for financing, there's a distinct shortage of candor about the consequences of such ongoing intrusions. Newsgathering, media debate -- and, of course, healthcare -- suffer the consequences.(...)"

Need contact info for your politicians?

☮ CR ❤ — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 19:05:46 EDT

Need contact info for your politicians? :

Ways & Means Committee, Education and Labor Committee, Energy and Commerce

(Blue Dogs are highlighted in red)

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=t9Ip4mUgPLWVQAp2IzshnvQ&output=html

"Vero Possumus" - Latin for "Yes We Can!"

Meet Russell Means

Fire Is Born — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 18:19:16 EDT

http://www.russellmeans.com/

We need a Washington Daily Brief

Food Fascist — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 09:59:49 EDT

Why are we not sending press releases out regularly to the smaller media such as KGO Radio and Progressive Radio and on line boards such as Yahoo News, Google Etc, Huffington Post. There should be a daily brief for which we can refer to so that when something happens in the news, we can know to go to the Daily Whitehouse Brief to get the truth. Maybe have a column in the Huffington post to support the people who supported you. In turn, People can subscribe to it. You ought to be on Thom Hartmann and Randi Rhodes in addition to Schultz with call to action. They ought to be on your list as with others to get your daily brief. You ought to state at least Thom's / Randi's name in the mainstream press to give him/ Air America Ron Reagen some recognition. These people can explain and bridge between what is real truth and what is not in the media. Newspaper reporters around the nation should receive this daily brief. So when the right wing radio says this will be Obama's Waterloo, we all know about it. I have yet to see in writing what is being proposed in term of health plans right now.. Its all a mess, all kinds of propaganda is out there. So good job by holding a national press conference tonight, but for those of us who work all the time, we will not see it but may see The Daily Whitehouse Brief.

"PETITION IN SUPPORT OF PAROLE OF LEONARD PELTIER"

Fire Is Born — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 21:44:46 EDT

I wanted to draw your attention to this important petition that I recently signed:

"PETITION IN SUPPORT OF PAROLE OF LEONARD PELTIER"

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/parole2008?e

I really think this is an important cause, and I'd like to encourage you to add your signature, too. It's free and takes less than a minute of your time.

Thanks!

I simply hope he will be free during Obama presidency.

Fire Is Born

From "Intercontinental Cry": Destruction of the Abatwa (Pygmy) Culture

Fire Is Born — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 14:43:20 EDT

Destruction of the Abatwa (Pygmy) Culture

July 18, 2009 at 9:18am |

143 views and

0 comments, leave your own

“The Abatwa are an example of the phenomenon feared by Subcomandante Marcos and the indigenous communities of the Chiapas region of Mexico, that of being so marginalized as a people that you just don’t matter any more.”

The Destruction of the Abatwa (Pygmie) Culture, produced for the 28-minute weekly cable public access program Indymedia Presents, takes a look at the largely-unnoticed struggle of the Abatwa People, more commonly known as the Pygmies.

Modern Abatwa life is a far cry from the past, when they were respected for being highly skilled traditional hunters. Today the Abatwa they have been so completely marginalized it’s like they do not exist.

This has been especially the case since 1973, when the Abatwa were thrown off their lands for an animal preserve. “The unintended consequence of the environmental victory was great destruction to Abatwa culture, and the loss of many lives.”

21 years later, the British Empire’s historical interference in Rwandan culture triggered a genocide of the Tutsi by the Hutu. As we watched on in terror, as many as 1,000,000 people were killed.

Nobody ever seemed to notice that the Abatwa were among them. Even now, few have ever reported that they were also targeted by the Hutu. The few reports that do exist, estimate between 10,000 and 30,000 Abatwa died during the months-long genocide. These are the forgotten victims.

Not much has changed since then. With fears occasionally rising that the genocide could happen again, the Abatwa find themselves being dragged to extinction. They are losing one percent of their population each year, and miscarriages are frequent because the Abatwa’s health is so extremely low and they have little or no access to aid, medicine, or social supports.

Some groups doing their best to help, like Caurwa and the Health Development Initiative – but even so, the Abatwa’s struggle for life is a losing one.

The Destruction of the Abatwa (Pygmie) Culture is the second in a series of films by Patricia Boiko from Pepperspray Productions. The first program examined the genocide in Rwanda, and how people can heal from such wanton horror.

Filed Under Abatwa • Africa • genocide • indigenous • Rwanda • video

Nuclear Power leads to Nuclear weapons

Sheldon from Doylestown — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 19:59:40 EDT

The weapon design and arms control communities agree that it is not the capability to design a nuclear device that determines the pace of a country’s acquisition of a first weapon, but, rather, the availability of nuclear weapons materials that can be turned to weapons purposes. For a nation-state, the material for weapons can come from uranium enrichment plants (highly enriched uranium), or reactors and nuclear fuel reprocessing plants (plutonium), or both.

Regardless of its isotopic composition, the minimum amount of plutonium required to make a pure fission nuclear explosive, with a yield equivalent to one to 25 kilotons of chemical high explosives, is quite small, on the order of 1 to 3 kilograms (kg), with the exact amount depending on the level of design expertise and the desired nuclear explosive yield. The minimum amount of highly enriched uranium required is a few times larger—5 to 10kg.

While far from ideal for military applications, the isotopic composition of the plutonium typically produced in civil power reactors does not pose a serious obstacle to fabricating efficient and powerful weapons, as well as crude terrorist devices.

http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/power/power.pdf

The proliferation of nuclear weapons is inextricably linked to nuclear power by a shared need for enriched uranium, and through the generation of plutonium as a by-product of spent nuclear fuel. The two industries have been linked since the very beginning and a nuclear weapons free world requires a non-nuclear energy policy. http://www.cnduk.org/index.php/information/info-sheets/briefings.html#nuclearpower

The Economics of Nuclear Reactors

Sheldon from Doylestown — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 19:42:34 EDT

HOPE AND HYPE VS. REALITY IN NUCLEAR REACTOR COST

THE ECONOMICS OF NUCLEAR REACTORS:
http://www.vermontlaw.edu/Documents/Cooper%20Report%20on%20Nuclear%20Economics%20FINAL%5B1%5D.pdf

Canada looks to beat Honduras, advance to second straight Gold Cup semifinal

Fire Is Born — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 15:20:26 EDT

Americas, Americas! How socker you are... Forgive me, Friends, but I will be screamin' for the Blue guys to win this Saturday. Many of their most famous players are Garifuna "my people", Black Indians of the Central American Coast. And that is not a surprise to me - who knows that their 25% Carib-Arawak genes have socker in their blood. Or, something very close to socker. Very entartaining and not at all bloody ball games WERE played on the little Antilles when the Spaniards arrived, where Garifuna come from. And yes, it was the South American Indians who invented rubber. How on earth can you play ball without RUBBER. The civilized Maya also had to get it all from somwhere, n'est pas? fib

ps. Do Obama girls play socker?

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Canada looks to beat Honduras, advance to second straight Gold Cup semifinal

By THE CANADIAN PRESS – 16 hours ago

PHILADELPHIA — Canada can advance to its second straight CONCACAF Gold Cup semifinal on Saturday, and help erase the sting of another disappointing World Cup qualifying campaign in the process.

Canada faces Honduras this weekend in quarter-final action at the soccer championship for North and Central America and the Caribbean.

The surprising Canadians were undefeated in group play, winning Group A with a 2-0-1 record for seven points. Canada defeated Jamaica and El Salvador by scores of 1-0, then tied Costa Rica 2-2.

To advance further, however, Canada will need to defeat a team that has provided no shortage of trouble to them recently.

Canada lost to Honduras twice during its failed attempt to qualify for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa, including a 2-1 home defeat at Montreal's Saputo Stadium. Canada finished 0-4-2 overall in the third round of CONCACAF World Cup qualifying, a result that led to the dismissal of manager Dale Mitchell.

Canada's interim manager, Stephen Hart, said at a press conference Tuesday that his squad will need a balanced attack to defeat its recent nemesis. He also praised the quality of the Honduran team.

"I've seen the team play in this tournament," Hart said. "They are blessed with good players technically who understand what was being asked (by) their coach, and physically as well. They will prove to be very difficult."

Canada has had success at the Gold Cup before, winning the tournament in 2000 and advancing to the semifinals in 2002 and 2007. But they have never been able to translate these results into greater success on the international level.

Canada has only qualified for the World Cup once, in 1986, where it failed to score in losing three games.

Hart is hoping success in this tournament, along with the ability to develop talent through Canadian teams in Major League Soccer, will usher in a more successful era for Canada's men's national team.

"It's no secret we have very limited success in the sport at the international level and we're trying to grow with the help of MLS," Hart said.

"Any success that the team has, gives some sort of silver lining to the fans who desperately want the program to grow."

The United States meets Panama in Saturday's other semifinal. The defending champion Americans defeated Panama in the quarter-finals of the 2005 Gold Cup en route to their fourth title.

"Our preparation is the same and we have great respect for Panama," U.S. coach Bob Bradley said. "Many of their players are the same. We will take the same approach as we do with the national team in preparation for Saturday's game."

In the other quarter-finals, Mexico meets Haiti and Guadeloupe meets Costa Rica on Sunday in Dallas.

The semifinals will be held July 23 in Chicago, with the championship game set for Sunday, July 26 at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J.

With files from The Associated Press

We've got to start seeing other people

Food Fascist — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 22:40:42 EDT

Norman Solloman of War Made Easy said in an interview with Angie Coiro today that he saw a bumper sticker that said, "I love my country- but we've got to start seeing other people."

2007 declaration of the major indigenous organizations in Honduras - why there is food shortage

Fire Is Born — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 17:54:15 EDT

These organizations totally support the return of Zelaya and condemn the coup. They were critical of certain policies of Zelaya in the past (however short his rule was), especially of his endorsement of the Plan Puebla Panama. However I record reading in the local press when in Honduras that Zelaya just have met with some indigenous leaders in June and promissed his support of their rights to land. The Garifuna leaders were also first to indicate certain rightist American organizations and individuals (Reich) as having hand in the coup, two days after the coup of June 28. OFRANEH found it also telling that the American Ambassador left the country the day prior to the coup.

fib

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DECLARATION FROM DURUGUBUTI

[transalated for RA by Rosalind Gil]

Garífuna, Lenca and Vía Campesina representatives have come together as part of the Foro de Biodiversidad: Territorio y Cultura (Forum on Biodiversity:
Lands and Culture) to declare that we honour the spirits of our ancestors who were massacred seventy years ago during the dictatorship of Tiburcio Crías and we declare that:

Faced with the offensive of the neo-liberal Plan Puebla-Panamá, a plan to reinforce neocolonialism amongst our peoples and to spread the powerful neo-liberal transport and maquila network, we raise our voices once again against the sacking of our lands and the breaking up of our social and political organizations; all of which is designed to expand the domination of the industrialized countries and their multi-national companies in Central America.

Destructive projects for so-called “integration and development” implemented by international financial organizations such as the FMI, BM, BID, USAID, UE, etc. are endangering the life and the cultures of our peoples. The “development” they put forth is based on economic profits that cause an imbalance to nature, which is an intimate part of our cosmology and from which many of us sustain ourselves.

The grave food shortage crisis in our country stems from a policy of agricultural production that is for export only. There is no existing plan for agricultural reform that guarantees a right to the land and to Food Sovereignty for Honduran campesinos.

The appropriation of biodiversity by the trans-nationals seriously endangers our survival. Biodiversity includes water, flora, and fauna, as well as our people’s traditional knowledge concerning conservation and rational use of resources.

The colonial policies put forth by Plan Puebla-Panamá are causing social conflicts that have led to repressive actions on the part of state security forces. These forces have adopted terror as a social-control strategy. The only ones who benefit from this strategy are the powerful elite, the transnational companies and financial organizations that put together the plan for economic domination.

Global warming and the need to satisfy the ferocious appetite of industry have grave consequences for the planet. Industry is responsible for climate change and is affecting us negatively in many ways.

Faced with the large number of totally asymmetrical Free Trade Agreements favouring a system based on exploitation and out of control consumerism that has caused the destruction of the planet:

WE DEMAND:

* Suspension of mega-projects in highly fragile ecological areas such as the Tigre and Patuca Dams (The MesoAmerican Biological Corridor), the Bahia de Tela where tourism is being developed and plans are in place to fill in the Laguna de Micos (RAMSAR 722). As well, efforts should be made to stop the destruction of many rivers and streams throughout the country.

* Immediate suspension of the existing Mining and Forestry law and of attempts to reform the law by trans-nationals and by members of the Congress who are being paid off. Immediate cancellation of the 300 mining concessions that have been granted (the equivalent of 30,000 square kilometers of the country). This will allow us to regain our national sovereignty, environmental balance, as well as respect for the land and cultural rights of the indigenous, black and campesino peoples of Honduras.

* Comprehensive agricultural reform, as well as a strategy for ensuring food supplies for the whole country. This strategy should respond to the needs of the people and not be designed to suit the needs of international financial organizations or the up and downs of the market.

* An indefinite moratorium on exploration and exploitation of hydrocarbons.
As well, a strategy should be developed and put in place to preserve energy.
The litigation process must, in the end, ensure that commitments to the Honduran people are kept. Our sovereignty and dignity must be put ahead of those of the trans-nationals and of the US Proconsul.

* Immediate ratification of the Cartagena Biosafety Protocol to stop the loss of our native seeds, especially corn seeds. Measures must be taken to save our native corn by identifying products made from genetically modified food. And in this way, with the reactivation of corn production, we will stop the massive importation of genetically modified seeds and cereals, and stop the importation and production of genetically modified varieties.

* Faced with global warming and the situation we have had to endure in Honduras since Hurricane Mitch, an increase in the intensity and number of storms, an increase in temperature and long periods of drought, we demand that a strategy be put in place for dealing with global warming and its effects on highly vulnerable areas such as the Caribbean coast, the southern area of the country, and in fact, the whole country.

* Rejection of the Ley Indigena (Indigenous Law) which was put together for the PAPIN-BID consortium and was created behind the backs of the indigenous peoples, violating OIT 169, which, we insist, must be enforced, beginning with the amendment of the Property Law which tries to do away with communal property.

* Faced with the systematic repression that we have had to endure, we, the indigenous peoples, black people, campesinos and environmental activists demand total respect for the human rights of the Honduran people and we demand that criminals be brought to justice.

Despite the on-going aggressions against our people, we are committed to intensifying our resistance. We will continue organizing, spreading information and training, as well as seeking ways of constructing a just and equitable society.

With the spirit of those who were massacred in Durgubuti, Talanquera, Astillero, Horcones and the spirits of Lempira, Etempica, Iselaca, Mota, Barauda and Satuye, we will continue our struggle with dignity.

San Juan Tela, Durugubuti
March 18, 2007.

OFRANEH (Honduran Black People’s Fraternal Organization) COPINH (The Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of
Honduras)
Vía Campesina
Grito de los Excluidos – Honduras

Brothers and Sisters, we invite you to join us by signing up at ofraneh@laceiba.com, copinhonduras@yahoo.es

http://www.rightsaction.org/urgent_com/Garifuna_Alert_042907.html

Most Americans don't connect climate change with human activity

Harold & Mary — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 00:35:03 EDT

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jul/09/climate-change-debate-human-activity

Those who haven't made the connection between climate change and human activites haven't read enough about it. Also, the oil companies propaganda has probably influened them. Propaganda is most effective when the originators have hiden where it is coming from. The Rush Limbaugh ditto heads have been given the words to say and the permission to say them. Informed people need to keep speaking up. The debate has not been won.

New monkey Species - the Mura's saddleback tamarin

Fire Is Born — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 02:40:48 EDT

I am simply glad that an indogenious tribe's name was used to name a species. I bet though the Muras had their own name for the animal - their language is now apparently extinct. I once read a Carib-English dictinary, and half of the text were zoological and botanical items. (I used to do such things before the Obama era.)

The Muras of Brasil, like the Caribs (Caripuna) of the Caribbean Islands and their Carin'a cousins in Venezuela were very powerful tribes and the fiersest fighters for their freedom. They were not much liked by the invaders, being the bad Indians, and accused of all forms of savagery.

So, we found the Mura monkey. Pity the language is lost.

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New monkey discovered in Brazilian Amazon

Tue Jul 7, 2009 2:50pm EDT

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Researchers have discovered a new sub-species of monkey in a remote part of the Amazon rain forest, a U.S.-based wildlife conservation group said on Tuesday.

The newly found monkey was first spotted by scientists in 2007 in the Brazilian state of Amazonas and is related to the saddleback tamarin monkeys, known for their distinctively marked backs, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) said.

The small monkey, which is mostly gray and brown and weighs 213 grams (0.47 pound), has been named the Mura's saddleback tamarin after the Mura Indian tribe of the Purus and Madeira river basins where the new sub-species was found.

It is 240 millimeters (9.4 inches) tall with a 320 millimeter (12.6 inch) tail.

"This newly described monkey shows that even today there are major wildlife discoveries to be made," Fabio Rohe, the lead author of a study confirming the new discovery, said in a statement released by the WCS.

The study found that the monkey is threatened by development projects in the region, including a major highway through the forest that is being paved and which could fuel deforestation.

"This discovery should serve as a wake-up call that there is still so much to learn from the world's wild places, yet humans continue to threaten these areas with destruction," Rohe said.

(Reporting by Stuart Grudgings; Editing by Philip Barbara)

LIVE COVERAGE OF Pres. ZELAYA'S RETURN

Fire Ants For Change - Che! Che! Che!... — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 15:14:44 EDT

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/100-Noticias

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updates from FAFC:

12:08 PT a Bolivaarn pilot is flying the President!

hundreds of thousands march toward Honduras - lost communication at

12:19 with the Councilor of Venezuela from Noticias cable 15

12:29

from radio globo - by order of Micheletti the plane of Zelaya was re-directed to El Salvador - all other planes operate normally with the help of Policia National and fearzas militarias - which control all the national airports

http://www.radioglobohonduras.com/

all stations are supposedy working - i hear catracho music mostly and this message above repeatedafter every three calls to stations

0100

radio globo is proceeding now with the speeches of various representaives defending their legitimity - vice councellore etc., someone named- it seems a pressmeeting

- 3 sources on twitter say the police is RECEDING (to second the line) in Tegucigalpa on the pressure of the pro-Zelayans

0103

Micheletti was aked a question and asked someone else to repond - they discussing OEA

0106 globo

Q: from what aouthority is the Councellor speaking?

A: of president

Q to Michelletii: why the plane was stopped

A by M> for sake of peace

Q preocupacion about mobilczation on the Nicaraguan border

A - mich. I have NOT left the country and we are going to continue - we are ordering the schools to proceede tomorrow - no more 4ta urna - will stay for 6 months, and will have elections on 26 of November

q: .......

0114

Q: how many troups are there at Nica brder?

A: Mich:

do not fear, small groups, dod not cross the border

Q: who is the pres. elect?

A: MICH

i am representant of the pueblo - if you do not like it... ok...i want to ask you - we are not going to negotiate with NOONE

A: for us who studied tyhe low - 13, 14, 15 - el titlar then was the king - that have the power - the state AM I - symbol of the absolute power - then came the revolution in France -lpease let me finish - here we have 7 million people - tehre are three pwers now (?) - Zelaya had to leave for violating law -

...

OK I am swicthinng to CNN

do so too

0125

FireIsBorn2Jesus, President Zelaya is on the ground in Honduras - in a car!!! in Tegus smiling! OMG OMG! he is there CNN go on! CNN, viva Hondurasless than 5 seconds ago from web

OD, do you see it?

<CORECTION: I WAS MISTAKEN - HE WAS IN A CAR SOMEWHERE ELSE - WILL ARIVE AT 4PM HONDURAN TIME)

.................

0129

here is speaking Micheletti

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/100-Noticias

I think this is the same conference I was reporting above from radio globo :

yes, yes, so channel 15 is behind

0131

globo is very excited!!!

Carlo Paz is speaking - negociating from the police - 500 police - we are close to Tocontin -

The crowd broke the police cordones!

(WHERE ARE OUR MEDIA, cnn)

lUIS oRTIS - IN THE AIRPORT - GRACIAS - CROWDS YELLING - AT TOCONTIN

THE ROAD IS FILLED WITH PEOPLE...

MANIFESTATION

THIS IS FROM RADIO GLOBO

0139

A WOMEN REPORTER: PEOPLE ARE CLIMBING THE WALLS - THE MANIFESTANTS - INCREDIBLE- HE IS WALKING...

OTRO - ANOTHER SECTOR - THE POLICE RETREATED AND THE MILITARY AS WELL!!!!

...

pOLICIA IS VERY PROFESSIONAL - 300,000 PEOPLE ARE HERE! - SO THERE IS no WAY THE POLICE CAN CONTAIN TEHM!!!

... THE COORDINATOR OF RADIO GLOBO ASKS FOR PROFESSIONALISM AND CALM OF REPORTERS...

COLONIA LA TORRES

r: WE CANNOT COUNT THE THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE (THE REPORTERS ARE CRYING??)

1445 (HONDURASTIME)

...INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE, THERE ARE SHOTS BUT WE know THAT THE POLICE WILL AVOID ANY DEATH - DEATH CANNOT HAPPEN HERE TODAY...

1449

...IF THERE WILL BE A ONE DEATH HERE - THE SPANISH COURT WILL PROSECUTE US... INTER OF A LITTLE GROUP (GRUPITO)

LENIS: MANIFESTANTS ARE SINGING THE HYMN OF HONDURAS

PRESIDENTE ZELAYA...

ANOTHER REPORTER: THIS IS VERY EMOTIONAL SEEING THOSE STREET VENDORS - WE ARE MAKING HISTORY!

WE ARE DENOUNCING THE COUP...

WE ARE GOING TO CONDEMN THE CARDINAL VIA VATICAN TOMORROW!! CARDENAL RODRIGEZ...

1500

i cannot believ that half milion people arrived here to tegus, i counted on 200.000..

1505

from la ceiba (a port on the atlantic)

our victory is imminent!!

tegus

speculations 105 brigada of 4 bataliones: speaks the comandant

- what's going

colonel: los batalions are (not) demorilized - i am here with the oficials - we are for democracy and nation we are united - we are with the people

have you seen this manifestations in tegus? yes, but

zona north all calm..

naval forzes as well - we are united - for constitution - the public is confused -

what will happen next?

the colonel Estoza: no es golpe - we only want calm

....

1520 honduras time cont. radio globe

.... a former official, a lowyer, says this WAS a coup and the people in his own Liberal Party who had helped this coup must be expulsed from the Party.

NOW WE ARE GOING BACK TO THE TEGUS AIRPORT...

CARLOS PAZ:

GRACIAS

WE ARE IN THE INTERIOR PART OF TOCONTIN - MANY VEHICLES HERE WHICH ARE NOT MILITARY - PLANES OF BLUE COLOR - WHICH ARE MILITARY... DESCRIPTIONS OF WHAT IS HAPPENING ON THE AIRWAY.

...

1530

THE PLANE OF ZELAYA IS CIRCLING OVER THE CAPITAL. WE ARE HERE TO DEFEND OUR PRESIDENT.

we carry a white bird with a sombrero to greet "Mel"...

1608

more here, myBO is slow today

http://twitter.com/

1845

WELL, THE REST WAS VERY DRAMATIC, TWO DEAD, BASICALLY THE THOUSANDS OF PROTESTORES OVERTOOK THE AIRPORT - ALMOST - AT FIRST. THE CROWDS WERE MASSIVE. THEN, THE MILITARY BECAME BRUTAL, AND AT THE END THE MARCHERS WERE EXPULSED FROM THE AIRPORT. BUT THE SUPPORT WAS HUGE FOR ZELAYA

WHO IS NOW I BELIEVE IN NICARAGUA.

PEOPLE OF HONDURAS WILL PREVAIL. i AM PROUD OF THEIR COURAGE.

"President Barack Obama has united with conservative Alvaro Uribe of Colombia and leftist Hugo Chavez of Venezuela in criticism (of the coup)"

Fire Ants For Change - Che! Che! Che!... — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 14:39:07 EDT

"Most of the ousted leader's supporters come from the working and middle classes of this impoverished nation, while his opponents are based in the ranks of the well-to-do — although the increasingly leftist approach of the wealthy rancher had eroded his popular support."

This sounds very true! The country has about 5% of well-to-do people. Their family names might not have changed often in the last centuries. How is that "popular" support, though, beats me.

And let's keep in mind that Honduras' middle and working classes mean something different theb in the West. In teh country there are no jobs - so the working class there means just dirt poor.And middle class means having at least high scholl eduaction, I guess. fafc

from TIMES PICTURES OF THE WEEK

Fire Ants For Change - Che! Che! Che!... — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 17:28:28 EDT

Pictures of the Week: Monday, Jun 29, 2009

United States Global Change Research Program

Harold & Mary — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:39:06 EDT

http://www.globalchange.gov/

13 United States Agencies agree: humans are causing global climate change.

link to the official OFA blog of Christopher Hass:

Fire Is Born — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 14:08:02 EDT

This is the link to the official OFA blog of Christopher Hass:

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/blog/obamaforamerica

Has the main Community blog been not accessible since May 26?

Let's regroup and continue our service. fib

When people are standing and police bullets killing - WE SHALL NEVER FORGET!

Fire Is Born — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 13:24:52 EDT

Thank you for the tears and the sunflowers, Obama Doug, my dear Friend!

fib

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PRESS RELEASE

N° 35/09

IACHR CONDEMNS ACTS OF VIOLENCE IN PERU

Washington, D.C., June 8, 2009—The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) strongly condemns the acts of violence that took place on June 5 in Bagua, in northern Peru, which have caused a number of deaths.

According to the information received, at least 30 people have died and others have been wounded, including indigenous leaders and members of the security forces, as a result of an operation by the National Police of Peru to break up a blockade that indigenous groups had maintained on the highway leading to the city of Bagua. The act of protest had been organized by indigenous peoples of the Peruvian Amazon region in response to legislative decrees affecting their property rights over their lands and territories. The Inter-American Commission reminds the State of its obligation to conduct a judicial inquiry into these acts of violence and repair the consequences.

The information received indicates that health centers in Bagua were not equipped to treat the large number of people injured. The IACHR calls on the Peruvian State to take the steps that are necessary to guarantee access to health care for all the injured.

The IACHR also calls on the parties to promote a process of dialogue to seek a solution that respects human rights. It is important to adopt mechanisms to prevent excessive use of force on the part of public agents in marches and protest demonstrations. As the IACHR has stated previously, “Criminalizing legitimate social mobilization and social protest, whether through direct repression of the demonstrators or through an investigation and criminal prosecution, is incompatible with a democratic society in which persons have the right to express their opinion.”

Finally, the IACHR has learned that on May 9 the government had declared a state of emergency. The Commission offers a reminder that Article 27 of the American Convention on Human Rights and Advisory Opinion 9/87 of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights specify the rights that cannot be suspended; these include, among others, the right to life, to physical integrity, and to the essential judicial guarantees necessary for these rights to be protected. In light of information received indicating that a number of people were arrested during the incidents with no report as to their identity or whereabouts, the IACHR calls on the Peruvian State to respect their right to physical integrity and to judicial guarantees.

A principal, autonomous body of the Organization of American States (OAS), the IACHR derives its mandate from the OAS Charter and the American Convention on Human Rights. The Inter-American Commission has the mandate to promote respect for human rights in the region and acts as a consultative body to the OAS in this matter. The Commission is composed of seven independent members who act in a personal capacity, without representing a particular country, and who are elected by the OAS General Assembly.

Useful Links

Read this press release in Spanish / Lea este comunicado de prensa en español

Press contact: María Isabel Rivero
Tel. (202) 458-3867
Cell: (202) 215-4142
E-mail: mrivero @oas.org

To subscribe to the IACHR press release mailing list, please type your e-mail address in this form.

From "Indian Country Today": Indigenous governor assassinated in Colombia

Fire Is Born — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 12:33:28 EDT

Our support for the Columbian government was forged in the eight years of Bush administration.

President Obama's administration should closely monitor all human rights abuses south of our border. Only then our south border will be safeand crime will stop "percolating"al Norte. fib

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Indian Country Today

Print this article

Indigenous governor assassinated in Colombia

Originally printed at http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/archive/48607197.html

"Indigenous Colombian leader Robert DeJesus Gaucheta was beaten to death by unidentified assailants near his home in the southwestern territory of Cauca May 18, several months after he and other officials had requested protection due to receiving numerous death threats.

Gaucheta was the vice governor of the Nasa Reservation of Honduras which extends more than 93,860 acres and includes approximately 7,000 Nasa people. His predecessor, Vice Governor Jose Goyes Santa Cruz, survived an assassination attempt June 8, 2008 in Gaucheta’s home town of Morales. Gaucheta was well-known for his leadership during the large scale national protests called the Minga, or commotion of the peoples in Colombia last year.

According to press statements sent by Vicente Otero, press liaison for the Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca, Gaucheta had long been a vocal critic of the government’s plans to hand over indigenous land to mining interests, and recently spoke out against attempts by unnamed groups to start growing illicit crops.

Sources in CRIC and in the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia reported that since December 2008, Gaucheta and other indigenous leaders had been receiving threats through text messages and phone calls, and they were attributing the threats to the “Black Eagles,” famous in Colombia for being ex-paramilitaries with ties to the drug trade. Otero said indigenous broadcasters, including Alfredo Campo of the “Our Stereo Voice of Morales” radio show, have been and continue to be threatened.

CRIC and other indigenous officials approached the Colombian Interior Ministry and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights about the threats in September 2008. IACHR also approached Colombian authorities to request protection for Gaucheta and 20 other indigenous leaders. According to all of the indigenous sources no protection plans were ever realized.

Indigenous and allied organizations throughout Colombia are renewing their calls for protection, focusing not only on the unsolved beating death of Gaucheta, but also the killing of indigenous resident Nilvany Cruz Zambrano who also lived in Morales. Zambrano was shot to death the day after Gaucheta’s funeral; indigenous sources reported that she was caught in the crossfire between national police and “illegal actors.”

“The Indigenous Regional Council of Cauca joins in the mourning by all indigenous communities of the death of the traditional indigenous leader, Robert DeJesus Gaucheta,” the release said. “…and reiterates its call to the national and international community on behalf of the indigenous communities of Agua Negra, Chimborazo and Honduras. … to urge the cessation of threats by paramilitary groups and to urge the Colombian government to stop avoiding its responsibility and provide sufficient guarantees that are needed to defend the lives and human rights of traditional indigenous authorities and their families, many of whom find themselves in a situation of forced displacement.”

Counting Zambrano’s murder, ONIC says 1,255 indigenous were killed by paramilitaries, drug traffickers and official forces since January 2002, although the Colombian government refuses to acknowledge that official forces have ever assassinated any of the victims. According to the official government tally, 40 indigenous were killed in 2007 and 66 in 2008."

Dying and indigenous: languages

Fire Is Born — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 01:53:24 EDT

SCIENCE MAY ONE DAY, NOT TOO SOON, BE ABLE TO CLONE AN EXTINCT BIRD FROM PLIABLE PRESERVED GENES IN A SPECIMEN.

NO EXTINCT LANGUAGE HAS SUCH A HOPE - IF THE DATA AND A SUFFICIENT DESCRIPTION ARE LACKING. THOUSANDS OF NATIVE AMERICAN LANGUAGES ARE ALREADY GONE FOREVER! WITHOUT TRACE, OR A RECORD OF A FEW WORDS. GONE WITH THEIR PEOPLE.

THE LANGUAGES STILL LIVING ARE SLOWLY GOING AWAY WITH EVERY ELDER PERSON WHO PASSES AWAY WITHOUT BEING RECORDED. I HAVE WITNESSED SUCH DEATHS AMONG THE GARIFUNA IN DIASPORA IN CENTRAL AMERICA'S CARIBBEAN COAST. THESE DEATHS ARE DOUBLY PAINFUL WITH LOSS.

LET'S MAKE THE WORLD AWARE THAT DYING HUMAN LANGUAGES DESERVE THE SAME AMOUNT OF COMPASSION, ADVOCACY AND FINANCIAL SUPPORT AS ALL THE ENDANGERED ANIMAL SPECIES WE ALL KNOW ABOUT. fib
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

http://www.colorlines.com/article.php?ID=545

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

"Having Their Say

By Kari Lydersen

Young marvels at the words that don’t have translations in English, like a word meaning “descending through forest to the sea.”

UNESCO lists almost 2,500 languages worldwide as “endangered,” meaning they are at risk of falling out of use and even disappearing as fluent native speakers die and younger generations fail to take up the language. A bulk of endangered languages are the tongues of indigenous groups who have been colonized or encroached upon by a dominant culture and forced or coerced to give up their native language. In the past, students were beaten for speaking their language in strict boarding schools in the United States and Australia. More recently in parts of the U.S. and countless other regions worldwide, people feel cultural and economic pressure to switch to the dominant language, seeing it as a means of opportunity and feeling a sense of shame in their indigenous identity.

But recent years have also seen a resurgence in the interest to preserve indigenous languages among academics, nongovernmental organizations and indigenous communities. In many cases, young people, who did not grow up speaking their native language, are now studying and embracing it as a way to understand and celebrate their heritage and connect with their elders.

Benjamin Young is a perfect example.(...)"

New Discoveries For Renewable Energy

☮ CR ❤ — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 17:11:18 EDT

Science Daily Interview with Richard Gordon on "Milking" Microscopic Algae

ScienceDaily (June 23, 2009) — Scientists in Canada and India are proposing a surprising new solution to the global energy crisis —"milking" oil from the tiny, single-cell algae known as diatoms, renowned for their intricate, beautifully sculpted shells that resemble fine lacework.

Richard Gordon, T. V. Ramachandra, Durga Madhab Mahapatra, and Karthick Band note that some geologists believe that much of the world's crude oil originated in diatoms, which produce an oily substance in their bodies. Barely one-third of a strand of hair in diameter, diatoms flourish in enormous numbers in oceans and other water sources. They die, drift to the seafloor, and deposit their shells and oil into the sediments. Estimates suggest that live diatoms could make 10−200 times as much oil per acre of cultivated area compared to oil seeds, Gordon says.

"We propose ways of harvesting oil from diatoms, using biochemical engineering and also a new solar panel approach that utilizes genetically modifiable aspects of diatom biology, offering the prospect of "milking" diatoms for sustainable energy by altering them to actively secrete oil products," the scientists say. "Secretion by and milking of diatoms may provide a way around the puzzle of how to make algae that both grow quickly and have a very high oil content."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090622165830.htm

********************

Carbonized chicken feather fibers fluff up hydrogen storage capacity for cars

6/24/09 New Kerala.com

Scientists in Delaware, US, have developed a new hydrogen storage method in the form of carbonized chicken feather fibers, which can hold vast amounts of hydrogen.

The research, presented at the 13th Annual Green Chemistry and Engineering Conference, could eventually help overcome some of the hurdles to using hydrogen fuel in cars, trucks and other machinery.

'Carbonized chicken feather fibers have the potential to dramatically improve upon existing methods of hydrogen storage and perhaps pave the way for the practical development of a truly hydrogen-based energy economy,' said Richard P. Wool, professor of chemical engineering and director of the Affordable Composites from Renewable Resources program at the University of Delaware in Newark.

The research was presented by Erman Senoz, a graduate student in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Delaware in Newark.

Chicken feather fibers are mostly composed of keratin, a natural protein that forms strong, hollow tubes. When heated, this protein creates crosslinks, which strengthen its structure, and becomes more porous, increasing its surface area.

According to Wool, the net result is carbonized chicken feather fibers, which can absorb as much or perhaps more hydrogen than carbon nanotubes or metal hydrides, two other materials being studied for their hydrogen storage potential.

An added advantage of the fibers is that they are cheap. Using carbonized chicken feathers would only add about 200 dollars to the price of a car, said Wool.

'By comparison, making a 20-gallon hydrogen fuel tank that uses carbon nanotubes could cost 5.5 million dollars; one that uses metal hydrides could cost up to 30,000 dollars,' Wool said.

Wool estimated that it would take a 75-gallon tank to go 300 miles in a car using carbonized chicken feather fibers to store hydrogen.

He said his team is working to improve that range. 'The problem with hydrogen as a gas or liquid is its density is too low. Using currently available technology, if you had a 20-gallon tank and filled it with hydrogen at typical room temperature and pressure, you could drive about a mile,' Wool said.

'When we started we didn't know how well carbonized chicken feathers would work for hydrogen storage, but we certainly suspected we could do a lot better than that,' he added.

In addition to hydrogen storage, Wool and his colleagues are working on ways to transform chicken feather fibers into a number of other products including hurricane-resistant roofing, lightweight car parts and bio-based computer circuit boards.

Go Julius!

Harold & Mary — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 01:08:57 EDT

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Genachowski

Anoxic Event

Harold & Mary — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 21:54:57 EDT

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anoxic_event

We are probably headed for another anoxic event unless we intervene.

UN.Security Council Toughens N.Korea Sanctions

bob-pol — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:21:26 EDT

Tightening the screws on N. Korea. Will it back them down, or make them more defiant?

U.S. soldiers take part in a joint military drill with South Korean soldiers north of Seoul in early June

U.N. Security Council agrees on tougher N. Korea sanctions

NEW YORK (CNN) -- The five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council have agreed on a resolution that would expand and tighten sanctions on North Korea, two senior Western diplomats at the United Nations said Wednesday.

The permanent members -- China, France, Russia, Britain and the United States -- reached the agreement in consultation with Japan and South Korea.

The council began discussions late Wednesday morning. A vote is possible Thursday or Friday, according to several diplomats, including French Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert.

The agreement comes amid rising tension with North Korea, which recently conducted a nuclear test, fired test rockets, and threatened U.S. and South Korean ships near its territorial waters. The nuclear test and the firing of six short-range rockets same in late May.

Pyongyang's actions violated U.N. resolutions.

Adding another wrinkle to the situation, two American journalists arrested in North Korea were convicted Monday of illegal entry to the country and sentenced to 12 years in prison.

Late last month, two Defense Department officials said U.S. satellite imagery spotted "vehicle activity" at a North Korean ballistic missile facility. The officials said the images showed vehicles used to transport Taepodong-2 missiles, but no missile parts. The Taepodong-2 is a long-range missile that was tested earlier this year by North Korea.

That test, in April, showed a significant improvement in range from North Korea's initial long-range missile test in 2006.

President Obama's special envoy to the secretive communist state, Stephen Bosworth, called "simply groundless" accusations by Pyongyang that its nuclear and missile tests were in response to American aggression.

Washington officials have said the United States' goal is for North Korea to return to nuclear negotiations with the United States, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia, known as the "six-party talks."

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/06/10/un.north.korea/index.html?eref=time_world

The Obama Presidency: Health Care Reform

EsquireUK — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 14:36:39 EDT

www.whitehouse.gov

This past weekend, grassroots supporters gathered at thousands of meetings across the country to kickoff a summer long campaign for health care reform. For Organizing for America, it was the largest post-campaign effort yet, but the timing and the issue couldn't be more urgent.

From the Boston Globe:

Barack Obama became president thanks to house parties like the thousands across the county this weekend, and thanks to activists who wrote checks and blogged and made phone calls to neighbors for the campaign. The agenda then was clear: Win the election.

Now Obama is reactivating his grass-roots political machine for a new purpose: Pass major legislation overhauling the nation's healthcare system.

From Reuters:

From a living room in Kansas to a bagel shop in New York to an Alabama church, Democrats have started mobilizing support for President Barack Obama's healthcare reform plans.

Suburban housewives and social workers mixed with Baptist ministers, college students, retirees and many others at grassroots gatherings over the weekend. Spurred by the Democratic National Committee's burgeoning political machine dubbed "Organizing for America," thousands of such meetings had been planned for Friday through Monday.

Those attending the scripted two-hour events viewed a videotaped message from Obama, shared personal stories and made local battle plans to counter the expected stiff opposition.

"It's going to be a vicious fight," said 76-year-old Hank Putsch who attended an organizing meeting on Saturday at a Kansas City restaurant. "The insurance companies and healthcare companies are gearing up to oppose this. We've got to get our voices heard."

Obama has declared this summer "make-or-break" time for healthcare reform and has called on Congress to pass comprehensive legislation by the end of the year, saying America can no longer afford the costs of a system dominated by profit-driven insurance and healthcare companies which leaves 46 million people uninsured.

Though he is leaving the details to Congress, Obama has said reform must ensure a public health insurance option operating alongside private plans, a reduction in basic costs, and assurance that no one is denied insurance.

"This is why we elected him," said Sarah Starnes, a hospital social worker who has volunteered to help campaign for the Obama plan in Missouri. "It used to be that we'd elect a president and then the lobbyists would determine what happened. This time it is going to be us who determine what happens."

N. Korea to Test Long-Range Missile ...

bob-pol — Sun, 31 May 2009 01:12:50 EDT

North Korea has previously launched a long range missile, and also a space satellite, so its ICBM capability is worrisome. Rob [bob-pol]

North Korea seen preparing to test long-range missile. US issues harshest warning yet as spy satellites spot signs of rocket being moved from weapons factory

Sunday, 31 May 2009, by Eric Talmadge in Panmunjom, Korea

Spy satellites have picked up signs that North Korea may be preparing to transport another long-range missile to a launch site, South Korean officials said yesterday. The development came as the US issued its harshest warning to the North since the recent nuclear test. "We will not stand idly by as North Korea builds the capability to wreak destruction on any target in Asia – or on us," US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates told a regional defence meeting in Singapore. He said the North's nuclear programme was a "harbinger of a dark future", but wasn't yet a direct threat.

Impoverished North Korea has earned billions of dollars from exporting missile technology to Pakistan and the Middle East, and the fear is that it could do the same with its new nuclear know-how. Mr Gates did not elaborate on how the United States might respond to North Korea, but he had earlier said no additional troops were being deployed to the peninsula, where 28,000 US soldiers are stationed.

Britain announced yesterday that it has sent a military aircraft to help verify the strength of the nuclear device detonated by North Korea last week. The Ministry of Defence said a VC10 tanker plane had been sent to Japan to assist with examinations determining the strength of the blast and the type of nuclear material used.

Since last Monday's nuclear blast, North Korea has test-launched six short-range missiles in a show of force and announced it won't honour a 1953 truce that ended fighting in the Korean War.

The reclusive communist state appears to be preparing to move a long-range missile by train from a weapons factory near Pyongyang to its northeastern Musudan-ni launch pad. Images of the movements were captured by US satellites. Experts have said the three-stage rocket has a potential range of more than 4,100 miles (6,700 kilometres), putting Alaska within its striking distance.

Yang Moo-jin, a professor at Seoul's University of North Korean Studies, said the North is likely to fire the missile shortly after the UN Security Council adopts a resolution criticising its recent nuclear test.

more, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/north-korea-seen-preparing-to-test-longrange-missile-1693517.html

Today is Blog for Troy Davis Global Awareness Day

Carole — Tue, 19 May 2009 23:04:28 EDT

Today is Blog for Troy Davis Global Awareness Day. Please participate before the tonight at midnight. Troy Davis does not deserve to be sentenced to death. He does deserve a new trial at the very least. He does deserve to have his death sentence commuted. Please speak out, because without public attention this injustice is going to be allowed to slip into our souls and our consciousness. The witnesses recanted, at least, let's find out what really happened, and let's not kill another being. Please pass this out and around. If the final moments come, know that we tried to stop this abomination. Don't kill Troy Davis.

HR 1760 Black Carbon Emmission Act

Harold & Mary — Tue, 19 May 2009 22:54:56 EDT

The Black Carbon Emission Act regulates soot. When soot lands at the poles it speeds up the melting of the ice caps. http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h111-1760 It also causes health problems. Please write your rep to suppot passage of it out of the energy committee.

"Torture Photos Are Torture" to Proud Arabs

bob-pol — Mon, 18 May 2009 22:01:47 EDT

We don't need more prisoner abuse (or torture) photos. This is one of the milder ones released last year.

Humiliation of people (treated as dogs) demonstrates to the Arab World an uncivilized nature,

and demonizes the U.S. in their eyes. No wonder they call us the Great Satan!!!

However, that is not fair, since the American people are not inhumane.

We just elected ruthless men, Cheney and Bush, who should be tried for crimes against humanity.

..... Rule of Law, or RULE OF MEN

Rob [bob-pol] racggg@gmail.com

Single payer is good for American people and American businesses - large and small

Fire Is Born — Sat, 16 May 2009 22:00:46 EDT

H.R. 676 FAQ

Universal Health Care

What is H.R. 676?

H.R. 676, also called the United States National Health Insurance Act, is a bill to create a single-payer, publicly-financed, privately-delivered universal health care program that would cover all Americans without charging co-pays or deductibles. It guarantees access to the highest quality and most affordable health care services regardless of employment, ability to pay or pre-existing health conditions.

What is "single-payer"?

The term single-payer describes the kind of financing system that H.R. 676 uses. It means that one entity--in this case, established by the government--handles all billing and payment for health care services. Right now, there are thousands upon thousands of "payers"-- HMOs, PPOs, bill collection agencies, etc. The sheer volume of paperwork required by our current system means that administrative waste accounts for roughly 31% of the money spent on health care. The single-payer system would eliminate the wasteful paperwork and administrative costs, redirecting more of our health care dollars to providing care.

Medicare is perhaps the best known single-payer system. Essentially, H.R. 676 would improve Medicare and expand it, so that it covers all Americans, regardless of their income.

Who will be eligible for health care coverage under H.R. 676?

All Americans will be eligible for health care coverage. Every person who enrolls in the program and receive a United States National Health Insurance Card and individual ID number, and that is all anyone will need to receive care.

What health care services are covered?

The program established by H.R. 676 will cover all medically-necessary services without charging co-pays or deductibles. The services covered will include: primary care; inpatient, outpatient and emergency hospital care; prescription drugs; durable medical equipment; hearing, dental and vision care; chiropratic treatment; mental health services; and long-term care.

What about "catastrophic" care? Will I ever reach a limit for coverage?

No. There are no limits on coverage. Just as you will never pay a co-pay or a deductible under the universal national health care program, you will never reach a ceiling on your coverage.

Will I be able to choose my doctor?

Yes. Patients will have their choice of physicians, providers, hospitals and clinics. The financing will be public, but the providers will all remain private.

No co-pays or deductibles-- what's the catch? Will I actually pay less for health care?

There is no catch. Both families and employers will pay significantly less for health care.

Currently, the average family of four covered by an employer-provided health care plan spends roughly $4,225 on health care each year, including premiums, services, prescription drugs and supplies. This figure does not include the annual Medicare payroll tax, currently at 1.45%. Under the plan created by H.R. 676, a family of four making the median income of $56,200 would pay about $2,700 in payroll tax for all health care costs. No deductibles, no co-pays, no worrying about catastrophic coverage.

Employers who provide health insurance currently pay, on average, 74% of employee health premiums. For a family of four, the average employer share is $8,510 per year. Under H.R. 676, the employer pays a 4.75% payroll tax, not a premium to health insurance companies. For an employee making the median family income of $56,200 annually, the employer would pay roughly $2,700.
Estimates taken from: Employer Health Benefits 2006 Annual Survey, Kaiser Family Foundation and Health Research and Educational Trust; Consumer Expenditure Survey, U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics; and Study by the Center for Economic Research and Policy.

How will the transition to the new system work?

The full conversion to a non-profit, single-payer universal health care program will not take place overnight once the bill is passed. The total transition time will be roughly a 15-year period. Important elements of the transition will include:

• Private health insurance companies will be prohibited from selling coverage that duplicates any benefits included in the universal national health care program. The private companies will, however, still be able to sell coverage for services that are not deemed medically necessary, such as many cosmetic surgery procedures. • Private insurance company workers who are displaced as a result of the transition will be the first to be hired and retained by the new single-payer entity. Any of the displaced workers who are not rehired will receive two years of unemployment benefits.

How will the universal program be paid for?

First, switching to a single-payer system will lead to billions of dollars saved in reduced administrative costs. Those savings will be passed on through the system and allow coverage for all Americans. Additional savings in the overall cost of health care will come from annual reimbursement rate negotiations with physicians and negotiated prices for prescription drugs, medical supplies and equipment.
Second, a "Medicare For All Trust Fund" will be created to ensure a dedicated source of funding in addition to annual appropriations. Sources of funding will include:

• Maintain current federal and state funding for existing health care programs
• Closing corporate tax loopholes
• Repealing the Bush tax cuts for the highest income earners
• Establish employer/employee payroll tax of 4.75% (includes present 1.45% Medicare tax)
• Establish a 5% health tax on the top 5% of income earners; a 10% tax on top 1% of wage earners
• One quarter of one percent stock transaction tax

Home

Solution to Photo puzzle of the night - guess what is that:

Fire Is Born — Sat, 16 May 2009 16:32:07 EDT

Please give your answer in the comments.

Hope you too are inspired by the poetry evening in the White House tonight.

The answer will be provided tomorrow in the CITA group's blog.

i dedicate this puzzle to our friend jfkfan lost to twitter. twit! twit! fib

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

DA ANSER IZ HYA!:

OoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/05/090506-bird-smuggling-picture.html

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How to prevent illegal imigration? Here's AGROS....

Fire Is Born — Sat, 16 May 2009 15:17:22 EDT

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How does Agros’s model affect the problem of illegal immigration into the United States?

There are many reasons why immigrants leave the rural countryside and come to the United States. Among them are the conditions of extreme poverty in which people live and the lack of opportunities that enable families to overcome their poverty. Many of the people coming to the U.S. illegally are “economic migrants” - people who come in search of work. Poverty conditions and lack of work opportunities at home mean that these economic migrants are willing to leave their families, risk their lives, and find work in some of the least desirable conditions - often as menial laborers and minimum wage workers. Steady work is better than no work, and minimum wage in the U.S. is often more than they can earn in an entire day in their native country.

Throughout Central America, political and economic conditions are such that no matter how hard people work, 60 percent are earning less than $1 per day and 40 percent are living below the poverty line. Unemployment and underemployment are rampant in the rural areas. There are simply not enough jobs to go around and no hope that circumstances will change any time soon.

By helping rural families purchase land and build thriving communities, Agros provides an alternative for people who believe their only option is to migrate into the city or into another country, such as the U.S. Agros enables families to stay together and to generate income within their own countries and communities. Agros helps families create a livelihood for themselves that can be passed on to their children. As conditions improve, the motivation for becoming an economic migrant disappears. Families stay together, communities are strengthened, and lives are transformed.

How do Agros projects help women?

Women in developing countries and across Central America face grave challenges. As the primary caretakers of families and children, they are on the front lines of hunger, malnutrition and death in their families. Agros’ programs cannot be successful or have a lasting impact if the health of women is in jeopardy.

Many women in rural Central America:

Lack access to prenatal care and are isolated from modern health facilities
Get married as adolescents, start families at a young age, and don’t know how to plan the size of their families
Have a difficult time keeping their children healthy and well-nourished because they don’t know how, or don’t have the resources to prepare a well-balanced meal and lack knowledge of basic sanitation
Are of poor health themselves because they sacrifice food and other resources for their children and are continuously breast feeding due to multiple consecutive births

Agros’ programs address the needs of women and children by creating a positive cycle of change. We help women achieve:

Education: For young girls who would otherwise marry young and start families when they are little older than children themselves, Agros provides opportunities for them to go to school. Educated girls tend to marry later and their children tend to be healthier.
Literacy training: Agros offers literacy training to adults, giving both men and women who were not able to go to school the opportunity to learn how to read and write.
Financial independence: Agros trains women to manage a savings account and family finances because women tend to invest in their families.
Business expertise: Through microenterprise development, Agros teaches women skills they can use to start their own businesses. Agros also teaches women (and their children) how to raise small animals close to home to generate income.
Family planning and health care: Many women have had more than 5 children and have never received a gynecological exam or had access to prenatal care.
Through the women’s health initiative:
- Women learn about their bodies in a way that promotes self-esteem. Women with greater self-esteem become active in community organization. They get involved in village decision-making and develop leadership skills.
- Women receive regular physical exams, many for the first time in their lives.
- Agros works within the local culture to provide education about birth spacing and birth control so that women and their husbands can make informed decisions about family planning.

People talk a lot about the importance of “sustainable development.”

How are Agros’ methods sustainable?

Sustainable development is an important element of Agros’ work. Agros works to create sustainability in three primary areas: in the environment, in family economics, and in community organizations.

Environmental sustainability begins by providing families with land. People take better care of and are more concerned about a resource over which they have ownership. Agros then provides training and technical assistance regarding the use and stewardship of this land. This includes the construction of composting latrines, improved wood burning stoves, and education on soil conservation, organic composting, and agro-forestry techniques.
Economic sustainability begins with improved production of basic grains. When a family produces more food on less land, they become more confident in their ability to feed themselves. With food security established, they begin to try things they’ve never done before, for instance, growing foods that they can sell in the market and use to generate income. Once families begin to generate a stable income, they can begin to pay back their land loans. And once their loans have been repaid (typically within 10 years), they become self-sustaining owners of their own land. From this land, they are able to generate an on-going, stable income and provide an environment in which their children can thrive.
Community sustainability is attained in two ways. First, we help give rural families the training to create a local community government that looks to the entire community for participation and decision-making. This becomes the backbone for civic responsibility and participation. It also becomes the primary way communities continue to thrive long after Agros has departed. The second way is through the Noemí Fund.

twit twit! from Nat Geo

Fire Is Born — Fri, 15 May 2009 15:54:42 EDT

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

NatGeoSociety#Greendex Did you know: 58% of Americans drive alone daily. 11% of Chinese consumers do. http://tinyurl.com/qysmx about 1 hour ago from HootSuite

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OMG! Please watch this short video and tell me what you think of joys of hunting.

Fire Is Born — Tue, 12 May 2009 13:52:31 EDT

I got this link from twitter, where any stranger can follow you and have you enlighten as to traditions you do not know from your family life.

Here it is:

Introducing Your Hunting Dog to Birds

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

http://www.gundogsonline.com/video/hunting-dog-training/introducing-your-hunting-dog-to-birds.htm

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Ps. I, by mistake, am twitter-following NRA, which I thought to be National Radio at first glimpse at the logo. We learn from mistakes too. fib

Ed Show from MSNBC on SINGLE PAYER - this man roars the truth!!!

Fire Is Born — Mon, 11 May 2009 15:09:30 EDT

I was mesmerized when I saw it last week.

Every American must see it. This is like ... WOW!!!!

Would you believe that this is only a second time I watched Ed?! Where on earth was I? OK, we didn't have the cable till couple weeks ago, and I soooo stoped trusting MSMs, 'cept KO. now Rachel, and always Bill Moyers.

I love Ed now, and single-payer is like numero uno for me, life or death. I will judge any politician on their stance about it and you guess who will get my vote.

yes or no.

no middle grounds here.

I am done being enslaved to my jobs because they give me some semi-lousy insurance.

And my small business employer is not happy they need to give me one. So they now prefer to hire folks that get insurance from some other source. Or are much younger than my 59 - with respective coverage cost from Keiser.

SEPARATE HEALTH COVERAGE FROM EMPLOYMENT NOW!!!

SINGLE PAYER for all Americans!!

more info about Single Payer. Learn today, act today:

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/fib/gGxJgJ/commentary

I am only "pushin down" spam: Rev.Mary is back.

Fire Is Born — Sun, 10 May 2009 21:27:47 EDT

How the Wayfinder Locates Land

(Photo below: An atoll appears as a thin black line on the horizon.)

Bibiliography Wayfinding

Once the canoe is in the vicinity of its destination according to the wayfinder's dead reckoning and latitude measurements, the wayfinder starts looking for land.

Navigating without instruments is not a precise science. Poor weather and mental lapses on a long voyage adversely affect its accuracy. But the wayfinder need not sail to a destination with pinpoint accuracy to be successful. Instead , the wayfinder in the Pacific tries to hit a "screen" of islands, that is, a group of islands that stretches out on either side of his destination. The longer or wider the screen, the less likely the wayfinder will miss it. Islands in the Pacific are seldom isolated; they are usually found in clusters. The Tuamotu Archipelago stretches 550 miles north to south and 500 miles east to west; the Society Islands stretches 160 miles north to south and 310 miles east to west; the Hawaiian islands extend more than a 1000 miles across the ocean east to west; the major islands form a north-south screen of about 240 miles.

Thus while sailing to Tahiti from Hawai'i, the wayfinder can target a 400-mile wide screen of islands between Manihi in the western Tuamotus, and Maupiti in the eastern Society Islands. If the wayfinder can hit any one of the islands in this target screen, he can reorient the canoe after he identifies the island and determines its position in relationship to his destination; if he does not recognize the island and the island is inhabited, he can ask the islanders where he is and if possible, get directions to his destination.

While there are open-ocean gaps between islands in a screen, a wayfinder looks for signs to let him know the proximity and direction of land even when he cannot see it. Signs of land include drifting land vegetation; clouds piled up over islands; the loom above an island created by sunlight or moonlight reflecting up from the white sand and smooth water of a lagoon; distinctive patterns of swells created by swells refracting around and / or reflecting off islands; and seabirds such as the manu-o-Ku (fairy tern) and the noio (noddy tern), which go out to sea in the morning to feed on fish and return to land at night to rest.

The diurnal flights of such birds are the most useful signs for expanding landfall, since their flights to and from an island gives a fairly specific direction to the wayfinder. As the birds leave an island in the morning, the wayfinder can sail in the direction the birds are coming from to find land; as the birds return to an island in the late afternoon, the wayfinder can follow the birds to land.

While a low atoll with trees can be seen at sea from about 7 -10 miles away, observing the daily flight patterns of seabirds can indicate the direction of islands out of sight range. Nainoa Thompson gives the following estimates of ranges of two seabirds that are the most reliable indicators of land:

manu-o-Ku (white tern): approximately 120 miles (though this bird may stay out at sea, or fly back to land unseen at night)

noio (noddy tern): approximately 40 miles

White Tern (Photo by Monte Costa)

Noddy Tern (Photo by Monte Costa)

Generally, sighting of large groups of birds is a more reliable sign of a nearby island than sighting one or two stray birds or a small group:

A large bird pile near Rangiroa Atoll in the Tuamotu Archipelago (Photo by Na'alehu Anthony.)

Rangiroa is faintly visible at the horizon in the photo above. Hokule'a was looking for the Tuamotus on the way to Tahiti after having left Rapa Nui and finding Fatu Hiva in the Marquesas. Tahiti lies about 170 miles to the SW of Rangiroa. December 1999.

Civilians and the international security strategy in Afghanistan

Fire Is Born — Sun, 10 May 2009 15:15:43 EDT

Caught in the Conflict
______________________________________________________
Civilians and the international
security strategy in Afghanistan

A briefing paper by ten NGOs operating in Afghanistan for the
NATO Heads of State and Government Summit, 3-4 April 2009

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http://www.theirc.org/resources/2009/caught-in-the-conflict-afghanistan-report-april-2009-pdf.pdf

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This Mother's Day, bring them from harm to home!

Fire Is Born — Sun, 10 May 2009 14:53:59 EDT

The Journey Starts With You

Barack Obama BEGINNINGS- A Tribute to Supporters

bob-pol — Sun, 10 May 2009 11:39:39 EDT

1} Barack's Mother brought him into the World and shaped hIm.

2) Barack's Grandparents loved him and shaped him too.

3) Barack's Early Supporters helped launch the campaign for President.

4) Barack's Portland Supporters' huge turnout was a springboard to his victory.

5) Barack's Grassroot Supporters elect a new type of candidate of the People.

6) Barack's Devoted Family were his Rock, supporting him tirelessly thru to Victory.

7) The Country supports President Barack Obama's Efforts to Change the World.