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TheStar.com (Toronto) - News - 10 things we learned this week
Jul 29, 2007 04:30 AMGeorge W. Bush has a pillow named Pilly, which he takes with him on all his trips. (word-detective.com)
Of course it's true. I'm just not sure that will matter.
... Let me say again, we are in SiCKO not because our story is so unique. We are in this film because we are not unique – we represent what is happening to so many others Americans. That is sad for us all. I worry every night that somewhere out there sits a woman like me who is at the end of her rope and has nowhere to turn. She works, so she earns too much for government-based help that do not allow for extreme medical emergency, but her pay after paying her insurance premiums is not enough to support her family. And tonight she’ll sit alone and hurting, not knowing that I pray for her and for her strength to face another day.I want the members of the committee to know that if HR676, Medicare for All, had been in place for us, we would have weathered the storm. We are hard-working people who under normal conditions make sound money decisions. But placed under the strain of mounting premiums, co-pays, deductibles and out-of-pocket costs, we did whatever we had to do to stay alive.
I am so angry with you. I lived the American dream as my father taught me and as his father taught him. I worked, I educated myself, I voted, I bought a home and then moved up into a better home, I raised my children responsibly and I served in my community – and you left me broken and battered because you failed to act on health care reform.
And out there today are hundreds of thousands of people struggling to make ends meet at the same time they are dealing with cancers and heart attacks and all manner of terrible personal health crisis and yet you still fail to act. These people are average, middle class Americans like me who want nothing more than to live a good and decent life surrounded by friends and family in a modest home with enough income to make ends meet.
I am also a Christian. And I do not know what type of Christianity, if any, the current system represents. I hear a lot about family values and respect for human life, but are those just empty words said to placate the religious right voting block or the powerful pro-life lobby? Other good and decent Christians might not share your blind devotion to those points of view. The Christ I learned about as a child attending Arlington Heights First United Methodist Church in Illinois and the Christ I continue to hear about in Sunday services at Cherry Creek Wesleyan Church in Colorado would not allow this to happen to the sick. In fact, I don’t think I’ve heard of any religious group that would allow the sick to be so deeply wounded – and especially not at the hands of other believers. I am asking you to value life and to value it outside the womb too.
And my lobby group will be growing more powerful too. Just as I have come out of the shadows of economic ruin and shame, so too will others come forward to hold you accountable. My faith demands that I love God with all my heart, and to do that I must love my neighbors and care enough to speak up for those too downtrodden to speak for themselves.
But I can only speak here today. You have the power to carry this onward to action. I ask you to search you hearts and your own value systems. Remember hard-working people, put yourselves in the shoes of your constituents and act accordingly. Their bankruptcy shame due to medical crisis really is your shame. You are the body that could have acted and has not. Move forward now, and please do not wait for a new president or for favorable political winds. That course takes no courage whatsoever, and I know each of you has shown courage in stepping up to serve this nation. I just think many of you have lost your way in remembering who elected you and who needs your bravery now.
More at link.
This is it. Frontier Psychiatrist (2001). Brilliant.
Mitt Romney goes for the spelling-challenged pinhead vote:
A golden oldie from a few years ago. Someone needs to warn these people about huffing the Magic Markers:
It is one of the great, dark, evil lessons of history.A country — a government — a military machine — can screw up a war seven-ways-to-Sunday… it can get thousands of its people killed… it can risk the safety of its citizens… it can destroy the fabric of its nation.
But as long as it can identify a scapegoat, it can regain… or even gain power.
The Bush Administration has, tonight, opened this Pandora’s Box, about Iraq.
OK, it's pathetic. I sit at my desk, surrounded by corn fields, and watch 46th Street at Times Square on earthcam.com.
Look! Other people! Walking! And some of them are talking at the same time! And not a Buckeye t-shirt in sight!
Yes, I know most of those people are tourists. But even tourists get temporarily smarter in Manhattan.
Report: War costing US $12B a month
WASHINGTON - The boost in troop levels in Iraq has increased the cost of war there and in Afghanistan to $12 billion a month, and the total for Iraq alone is nearing a half-trillion dollars, congressional analysts say.All told, Congress has appropriated $610 billion in war-related money since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror assaults, roughly the same as the war in Vietnam. Iraq alone has cost $450 billion.
The figures come from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, which provides research and analysis to lawmakers.
For the 2007 budget year, CRS says, the $166 billion appropriated to the Pentagon represents a 40 percent increase over 2006.
The Vietnam War, after accounting for inflation, cost taxpayers $650 billion, according to separate CRS estimates.
The $12 billion a month "burn rate" includes $10 billion for Iraq and almost $2 billion for Afghanistan, plus other minor costs. That's higher than Pentagon estimates earlier this year of $10 billion a month for both operations. Two years ago, the average monthly cost was about $8 billion.
[more at link]
I dunno, Louie. What do you suppose we could buy with a bit over 16 MILLION DOLLARS EVERY FREAKING HOUR.
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."
Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th president of the US, from a speech before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, April 16, 1953.
Armed autonomous robots cause concern - New Scientist
A MOVE to arm police robots with stun guns has been condemned by weapons researchers.On 28 June, Taser International of Arizona announced plans to equip robots with stun guns. The US military already uses PackBot, made by iRobot of Massachusetts, to carry lethal weapons, but the new stun-capable robots could be used against civilians.
"The victim would have to receive shocks for longer, or repeatedly, to give police time to reach the scene and restrain them, which carries greater risk to their health," warns non-lethal weapons researcher Neil Davison, of the University of Bradford, UK.
"If someone is severely punished by an autonomous robot, who are you going to take to a tribunal?" asks Steve Wright, a security expert at Leeds Metropolitan University, UK.
When I was a very small boy, my parents took me to the Hayden Planetarium in New York City, where I was encouraged to sign up as a passenger on "The first trip to the moon," then (circa 1955) still far in the future. I even got a little certificate. A gullible lad, I should have been thrilled at the prospect. But, once home, I was consumed with anxiety. For months I was convinced that someday large men would come to our door, drag me away, and send me, weeping piteously, to the moon.
Now I wish they had.
Because I really can't think of another explanation for this:
Jobs warns knockoff iPhone "lacks many key features" | Brad Ideas
Steve Jobs of Apple Computer warned today that a rumoured cheap Chinese iPhone knockoff making its way toward America is an inferior product which lacks many of the important features of the iPhone. “It may look a bit like an iPhone, but when consumers discover all the great iPhone features that are missing from it, we think they’ll still line up at Apple Stores for the genuine article,” said Jobs in a released statement. Designed by software nerds, the knockoff, dubbed the “myPhone” by fans, has not yet been confirmed.Apple released a list of features reported to be missing from the “myPhone.”
* The iPhone has special software that assures you will always use the trusted AT&T cellular network. Lacking this software, the myPhone accepts any SIM card from any random network. Users may find themselves connected to a network that doesn’t have the reputation for service, trust and protecting the privacy of customers that AT&T has. In addition, users may be stuck without 2 years of guaranteed AT&T service.
* The iPhone is configured to assure you the latest iTunes experience. The myPhone might function before you have installed the latest iTunes and registered your phone with it. Indeed, the myPhone lacks the protections that block it from being used without registering it with or reporting back to anybody, depriving the user of customer service and upsell opportunities.
* The iPhone has special software that assures all applications run on the iPhone have been approved by Apple, which protects the user from viruses and tools that may make the user violate their licence agreements. The myPhone will run any application, from any developer, opening up the user to all sorts of risks.
* The iPhone protects users from dangerous Flash and Java applications which may compromise their device and confuse the user experience.
* myPhones don’t forbid VoIP software that may cause the user to accidentally make calls over wireless internet connections instead of the AT&T network. Quality on the internet is unpredictable, as is the price, which can range down to zero, causing great pricing uncertainty. With the iPhone, you always know what calls cost when in the USA.
More at link. Very well done.
"We Can't Make it Here Anymore"
Vietnam Vet with a cardboard sign
Sitting there by the left turn line
Flag on the wheelchair flapping in the breeze
One leg missing, both hands free
No one's paying much mind to him
The V.A. budget's stretched so thin
And there's more comin' home from the Mideast war
We can't make it here anymore
That big ol' building was the textile mill
It fed our kids and it paid our bills
But they turned us out and they closed the doors
We can't make it here anymore
See all those pallets piled up on the loading dock
They're just gonna set there till they rot
'Cause there's nothing to ship, nothing to pack
Just busted concrete and rusted tracks
Empty storefronts around the square
There's a needle in the gutter and glass everywhere
You don't come down here 'less you're looking to score
We can't make it here anymore
The bar's still open but man it's slow
The tip jar's light and the register's low
The bartender don't have much to say
The regular crowd gets thinner each day
Some have maxed out all their credit cards
Some are working two jobs and living in cars
Minimum wage won't pay for a roof, won't pay for a drink
If you gotta have proof just try it yourself Mr. CEO
See how far 5.15 an hour will go
Take a part time job at one of your stores
Bet you can't make it here anymore
High school girl with a bourgeois dream
Just like the pictures in the magazine
She found on the floor of the laundromat
A woman with kids can forget all that
If she comes up pregnant what'll she do
Forget the career, forget about school
Can she live on faith? live on hope?
High on Jesus or hooked on dope
When it's way too late to just say no
You can't make it here anymore
Now I'm stocking shirts in the Wal-Mart store
Just like the ones we made before
'Cept this one came from Singapore
I guess we can't make it here anymore
Should I hate a people for the shade of their skin
Or the shape of their eyes or the shape I'm in
Should I hate 'em for having our jobs today
No I hate the men sent the jobs away
I can see them all now, they haunt my dreams
All lily white and squeaky clean
They've never known want, they'll never know need
Their shit don't stink and their kids won't bleed
Their kids won't bleed in the damn little war
And we can't make it here anymore
Will work for food
Will die for oil
Will kill for power and to us the spoils
The billionaires get to pay less tax
The working poor get to fall through the cracks
Let 'em eat jellybeans let 'em eat cake
Let 'em eat shit, whatever it takes
They can join the Air Force, or join the Corps
If they can't make it here anymore
And that's how it is
That's what we got
If the president wants to admit it or not
You can read it in the paper
Read it on the wall
Hear it on the wind
If you're listening at all
Get out of that limo
Look us in the eye
Call us on the cell phone
Tell us all why
In Dayton, Ohio
Or Portland, Maine
Or a cotton gin out on the great high plains
That's done closed down along with the school
And the hospital and the swimming pool
Dust devils dance in the noonday heat
There's rats in the alley
And trash in the street
Gang graffiti on a boxcar door
We can't make it here anymore
Music and lyrics by James McMurtry
A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. -- Declaration of Independence.
Tucker Carlson interviewing Bush in 1999:
In the weeks before the execution, Bush says, a number of protesters came to Austin to demand clemency for Karla Faye Tucker. "Did you meet with any of them?" I ask. Bush whips around and stares at me. "No, I didn't meet with any of them", he snaps, as though I've just asked the dumbest, most offensive question ever posed. "I didn't meet with Larry King either when he came down for it. I watched his interview with Tucker, though. He asked her real difficult questions like, 'What would you say to Governor Bush?'" "What was her answer?" I wonder. "'Please,'" Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, "'don't kill me.'" I must look shocked — ridiculing the pleas of a condemned prisoner who has since been executed seems odd and cruel — because he immediately stops smirking.