August 2009 archive

Welcome to the 20th installment of “Considered Forthwith.”

This weekly series looks at the various committees in the House and the Senate. Committees are the workshops of our democracy. This is where bills are considered, revised, and occasionally advance for consideration by the House and Senate. Most committees also have the authority to exercise oversight of related executive branch agencies.

Since we are all interested in passing the public option through reconciliation, this seems an opportune time to look at the House and Senate Budget committees that have jurisdiction over reconciliation. This process, which has existed since 1974, is not used every year, but is being actively considered this year. The major function of the budget committees, however, is to handle the budget resolution, which was done months ago. (CF regrettably missed that opportunity to discuss the Budget Committees.)

Milk, in its human form, has  been the foundation of nutrition for hominid infants for millions of years.  In the past few millenia, animals have been domesticated for milk and meat.  Many of them are ruminants, but not all are.  The camel and the horse are notable exceptions, highly regarded in several cultures for their milk.

In the western world, kine (aka cattle), (Bos) are almost exclusively used for providing milk in useful quantities.  As a matter of fact, in the United States this is such an important agricultural industry that entire sets of laws and price supports have been enacted.

This essay looks into the the issue of milk that is produced with Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH), (also called Bovine Somatotropin (BST))and will likely prove to be controversial.  This is an important issue, and I will attempt to give it a fair treatment, but remember that many folks have already made up their minds without considering the actual data, and it is difficult to make folks who have already made decisions based on emotion to see logic.  With that said, here we go.

If you’re on Facebook, you’ve got to check out this group:

http://www.facebook.com/group….

For too long now, fire departments across the United States have been socialist organizations, resulting in taxes on the American people.

FACT: Most Americans never use the socialized services of the fire department. The Obama administration has been very clear about keeping the status quo when it comes to taxpayer-funded fire departments.

It is time to open the fire department up to private industry. We have the best fire departments in the world in the US, but that doesn’t mean that anyone (even non-US citizens) should be able to dial up and have fires put out, etc. There are private companies (Halliburtion, Etc.) who could step in tomorrow and take over every fire department in America and charge the consumer directly.

This is AMERICA. NO FREE FIRE SAFETY.

“Better DEAD than fire truck RED.”

-member D.J. Hostettler

Please tell everyone you know about this group!

Crossposted at Daily Kos

    I have republished the two diaries posted by our President and fellow Kossack Barack Obama in order for us, as Democrats, to better understand the man and his style in passing the Democratic agenda he was elected to advance.

    I do so for the purpose of making a point.

    Therefore, I give you the words of President Barack Obama, posted below the fold.

Weekend News Digest is an Open Thread

Now with World News.

1 UBS chairman says clients "not harmless victims": report

Reuters

Sun Aug 23, 9:33 am ET

The lies upon lies to which our corrupt U.S. Foreign Policy is built upon hasn’t changed at all, with the 2008 Election and a new President. Unknown perhaps to most Americans, we today are just getting spoon-fed even more and more lies.

Quoting from Eric Margolis excellant article in CommonDreams.org:   Afghanistan

An election held under the guns of a foreign occupation army cannot be called legitimate or democratic. This week’s stage-managed vote in Afghanistan for candidates chosen by western powers is unlikely to bring either peace or tranquility to this wretched nation that has suffered 30 years of war.

The Taliban and its nationalist allies rejected the vote as a fraud designed to validate continued foreign occupation and open the way for western oil and gas pipelines.

The Taliban, which speaks for many of Afghanistan’s majority Pashtun, said it would only join a national election when U.S. and NATO troops withdraw.

The current war in Afghanistan is not about democracy, women’s rights, education or nation building. Al-Qaida, the other excuse, barely exists. Its handful of members long ago decamped to Pakistan.

The war really is about oil pipeline routes and western domination of the energy-rich Caspian Basin.

There will be neither peace nor stability in Afghanistan until all ethnic groups are enfranchised. The West must cease backing minority Tajiks and Uzbeks against majority Pashtun — who deserve their rightful share of power and spoils.

We can’t solve Afghanistan’s social or political problems by waging a cruel and apparently endless war. The solution to this unnecessary war is not more phoney elections but a comprehensive peace agreement among ethnic factions that largely restores the status quo before the 1970 Soviet invasion.