Sep 16 2009
I did a post the other day about Jon Krakauer and his new book: “Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman” with a video report from ABC’s Good Morning America and from the ABC World News Tonight.
He’s since been on at least two NPR shows one being All Things Considered which is about a seven minute discussion of the book and the Pat Tillman military service story that was propagandized by both the cheney/bush administration, the pentagon and the military!
Sep 16 2009
The LA Times reports the Senate to consider limits on carbon dioxide emissions. “The Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources will hear testimony today and Thursday about the economic effects of limiting carbon dioxide emissions.” I think focusing on economics is amazing short-sighted.
“In doing so, the senators will be bombarded with information and lessons from the EU’s Emissions Trading System… The volatility experienced in Europe has American legislators and analysts worried… Lawmakers are also concerned about the effect of carbon regulation on energy prices.”
“The bill before Congress would initially give away the vast majority of permits, although it would eventually shift toward auctioning most of them. President Obama said he wanted to auction all of the permits from the start. But negotiations with the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrats and other representatives from coal-rich states led to the shift in approach.”
The CS Monitor reports the White House ties new gas mileage standards to global warming. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and Transportation Sec. Ray LaHood announced “he nation’s first-ever greenhouse gas emissions standards for vehicles, which it said clarifies rules for automakers and takes a big step toward meeting climate change and energy security goals. The new regulations tie emissions and fuel economy standards together, requiring the new light-duty vehicle fleet to average 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016”.
Meanwhile, The Guardian reports a Chinese government adviser warns that 2C global warming target is unrealistic. China will not keep global warming below 2C warned Dai Yande, deputy chief of the Energy Research Institute and adviser to China’s government.
“You should not target China to fulfill the two degree target. That is just a vision. Reality has deviated from that vision,” said Dai. “We do not think that target provides room for developing countries.” China argues that its priority must be economic growth to relieve poverty among its vast population…
“Twenty percent of the world’s population takes 80% of wealth and emits 70% of greenhouse gases,” he said.
Four at Four continues with drug prohibition, Afghanistan, and sex, drugs, and petroleum.
Sep 16 2009
by Paul Craig Roberts
This concise, succinct analysis of the current state of health care reform was posted on Counterpunch (9/14) and Global research (9/15)
I think it will add to our clarity on the subject.
So I post it with the kind permission of Paul Craig Roberts, beyond the fold…
Sep 16 2009
From the “Everything is Related” file…
OSLO (Reuters) – The world will face a “global health catastrophe” if governments fail to agree deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions as part of a U.N. pact in Copenhagen in December, several leading doctors have declared.
…..
A strong agreement in Copenhagen by 190 nations to curb emissions would help avert heatwaves, floods and desertification that would disrupt water supplies and cause malnutrition and disease, especially in poor nations.
“Failure to agree radical reductions in emissions spells a global health catastrophe,” wrote authors Michael Jay, chair of the Merlin medical relief charity, and Michael Marmot, director of the International Institute for Society and Health.
Sep 16 2009
Crossposted at Daily Kos
After reading Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH10) DKos post titled The Private Mandate Sausage Machine which explains how Health Care Reform may/will be twisted into a bill mandating that I purchase private insurance but lacks all content of reform, I would like to make the following statement.
Dear Dems, Feed me a Sh!t/Sausage Sandwich on Health Care Reform and I’ll BURN THIS MFing TENT TO THE GROUND!!!!
If the Private Health Care disaster is addressed by making it madatory that I buy junk insurance from the bastards that caused this mess, I will make it my personal business to drive the Corporate snakes from the tent and burn the tent to the ground.
Simply put, if Dems pass a HCR bill with mandates and no public option, I will kick these Dems frakkin asses, and you should too.
More below the fold and a call to action..
Sep 16 2009
The Guardian is reporting very discouraging news, in the lead up to the United Nations Climate Change Conference, in Copenhagen, in December.
Europe has clashed with the US Obama administration over climate change in a potentially damaging split that comes ahead of crucial political negotiations on a new global deal to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
The impasse is said to threaten the goal of limiting global temperature increases to no more than 2 degrees celsius, by 2015. Another Guardian article quotes UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon:
“We are deeply concerned that the negotiation is not making much headway. It is absolutely and crucially important for the leaders to demonstrate their political will, leadership, and to give clear political guidelines to the negotiators. They should be responsible for the future of this entire humanity,” Ban told the Guardian.
Ban, newly returned from a trip to the Arctic, sees action on climate change as his personal legacy as UN chief. He said he hoped the unprecedented size of the climate meeting, the high level of representation and an unconventional format would transform the talks.
“Have you ever seen any such international conference at the level of so many leaders coming at one time and one place? In any summit meeting you have not seen such a highly political, highly motivated meeting. That is where we have to find some political strength.”
But as elucidated in the first Guardian article, the problem is this:
Sep 16 2009
The subject title comes from one of the just released Kaiser Family Foundation survey of employers titled Employer Health Benefits 2009 Annual Survey
This annual survey of employers provides a detailed look at trends in employer-sponsored health coverage, including premiums, employee contributions, cost-sharing provisions, and other relevant information. The survey continued to document the prevalence of high-deductible health plans associated with a savings option and included new questions on health risk assessments. The 2009 survey included 3,188 randomly selected public and private firms with three or more employees (2,054 of which responded to the full survey and 1,134 of which responded to an additional question about offering coverage). Researchers at the Kaiser Family Foundation, the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, and Health Research & Educational Trust designed and analyzed the survey.
There’s a whole host of links to the survey at the above link in mostly pdf format.
Sep 16 2009
So, what has gone wrong in our society, in our government, when the majority of the public favor a public option in health care reform, yet, our government is unwilling to provide it? What has gone wrong when people are willing to protest the very thing they need for themselves and their families; affordable health care?
The answer to these questions can be found in two words; corporate money.
Sep 16 2009
“The preparations for Hate Week were in full swing, and the staffs of all the Ministries were working overtime. Processions, meetings, military parades, lectures, waxworks, displays, film shows, telescreen programmes all had to be organized; stands had to be erected, effigies built, slogans coined, songs written, rumours circulated, photographs faked..”.
– George Orwell
The angry, shrieking hordes came forth this weekend in the nation’s capitol, waving their racist placards, their bagged birth certificates, their Gadsden flags and their Nancy Pelosi Nazi signs. The were legion and they got media coverage, unlike the massive antiwar demonstrations during the darkest days of the Bushreich when these phony patriots, aggrieved citizens and authority worshipping swine were content the ‘Bomb Em All and Let God Sort Em Out’ foreign policy of their Jesus kissed emperor. It was a gathering of blistering hatred, many smaller ‘tea parties’ were being staged across the fruited plain on that marvelous day, the day after the hallowed 8th anniversary festivities that marked the coming of the glory of the lord on that historic Tuesday morning when the American Reichstag Fire dragged us kicking, screaming and swaddled in the almighty stars-n-stripes into the New American Century.
Sep 16 2009
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