Once again, we can readily see through the evolution of the so-called Health Care Reform Legislation the forces that actually drive American Politics. The Lobbyists who dutifully represent the Health Care Insurance Industry and the wealthy are, once again, reaping the rewards for the largesse that they readily bestow upon legislators who vote on their behalf.
It is quite amazing how rapidly increased taxation on the very wealthy as a partial solution to financing health care reform was dropped from the agenda. It seems that this class that holds a vastly disproportionate share of the nation’s wealth does not have any obligation to actually contribute financially to a solution that would be an immeasurable benefit to all Americans. When it comes to reducing the tax burden of those who can easily afford higher taxes, however, the Congress has demonstrated on many occasions just how prepared they are to do so.
It is equally astonishing how quickly the inclusion of a public option as an integral part of the proposed health care reform legislation was also eliminated from consideration.
It does not require a remarkable stretch of the imagination to understand how these policy reversals occur. This represents the same old story. Our society and culture has devolved into one in which the primary concern for all human endeavor can be distilled into one powerful concept- profit. We seem to be more than willing to allow millions of men, women and children to continue to suffer needlessly on account of the fact the health insurance industry is not in the slightest way interested in the public health or the public good. It is a thriving industry built upon a failed and destitute public health system.
This is an outrageous situation and is, essentially, morally reprehensible. In my mind the Congress is primarily responsible. The American people also share the responsibility for being so easily swayed by fallacious arguments and not standing up for what they absolutely require.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
America's Health Care Ranking
The American people pay twice as much per person for medical care than the rest of the world combined. America ranks 37th out of 191 countries in health care.
The World Health Organization has carried out the first ever analysis of the world's health systems. Using five performance indicators to measure health systems in 191 member states, it finds that France provides the best overall health care followed among major countries by Italy, Spain, Oman, Austria and Japan.
The U.S. health system spends a higher portion of its gross domestic product than any other country but ranks 37 out of 191 countries according to its performance, the report finds. The United Kingdom, which spends just six percent of GDP on health services, ranks 18 th . Several small countries – San Marino, Andorra, Malta and Singapore are rated close behind second- placed Italy.
The impact of failures in health systems is most severe on the poor everywhere, who are driven deeper into poverty by lack of financial protection against ill- health, the report says.
"The poor are treated with less respect, given less choice of service providers and offered lower- quality amenities," says Dr Brundtland. "In trying to buy health from their own pockets, they pay and become poorer."
While private health expenses in industrial countries now average only some 25 percent because of universal health coverage (except in the United States, where it is 56%), in India, families typically pay 80 percent of their health care costs as "out-of- pocket" expenses when they receive health care.
Colombia achieved top rank because someone with a low income might pay the equivalent of one dollar per year for health care, while a high- income individual pays 7.6 dollars.
In North America, Canada rates as the country with the fairest mechanism for health system finance – ranked at 17-19, while the United States is at 54-55. Cuba is the highest among Latin American and Caribbean nations at 23-25.
Health care, like education, is an investment in our future and should be a "not for profit" venture. Unfortunately in America, the health care industry is controlled by the pharmaceutical, insurance and medical products industries who enjoy a virtual monopoly on all pricing for the benefit of "maximum profit". It's no wonder they have launched a massive "disinformation campaign" and are lobbying (read "bribery") so hard to kill health care reform.
(read more)
The World Health Organization has carried out the first ever analysis of the world's health systems. Using five performance indicators to measure health systems in 191 member states, it finds that France provides the best overall health care followed among major countries by Italy, Spain, Oman, Austria and Japan.
The U.S. health system spends a higher portion of its gross domestic product than any other country but ranks 37 out of 191 countries according to its performance, the report finds. The United Kingdom, which spends just six percent of GDP on health services, ranks 18 th . Several small countries – San Marino, Andorra, Malta and Singapore are rated close behind second- placed Italy.
The impact of failures in health systems is most severe on the poor everywhere, who are driven deeper into poverty by lack of financial protection against ill- health, the report says.
"The poor are treated with less respect, given less choice of service providers and offered lower- quality amenities," says Dr Brundtland. "In trying to buy health from their own pockets, they pay and become poorer."
While private health expenses in industrial countries now average only some 25 percent because of universal health coverage (except in the United States, where it is 56%), in India, families typically pay 80 percent of their health care costs as "out-of- pocket" expenses when they receive health care.
Colombia achieved top rank because someone with a low income might pay the equivalent of one dollar per year for health care, while a high- income individual pays 7.6 dollars.
In North America, Canada rates as the country with the fairest mechanism for health system finance – ranked at 17-19, while the United States is at 54-55. Cuba is the highest among Latin American and Caribbean nations at 23-25.
Health care, like education, is an investment in our future and should be a "not for profit" venture. Unfortunately in America, the health care industry is controlled by the pharmaceutical, insurance and medical products industries who enjoy a virtual monopoly on all pricing for the benefit of "maximum profit". It's no wonder they have launched a massive "disinformation campaign" and are lobbying (read "bribery") so hard to kill health care reform.
(read more)
Monday, July 27, 2009
Survival of the Gold Promise
Since the creation of the Gold Promise,
there have been many waves.
Waves that have attempted to wash away,
erase the promise that we've written in the sand.
But the Gold Promise isn't made of sand.
It's as indestructible as we are.
it will be followed till death.
[or rather it will follow till death]
Hopefully it'll succeed either to leave a legacy,
or fail to fade away,
and become a legacy itself.
Humanity knows how vulnerable they are.
How big the mountains,
how deep the oceans,
how far the sun
and how close the opportunity of death.
But don't give up,
I alone, can't do this thing.
Even though we're so small,
the universe so big,
we were made for it.
[or rather it was made for us]
Fate can look grim,
but it can't be that bad
for its only the product of imagination.
Fate doesn't exist
...all that exists is what exists now.
So don't give up,
we still got a ways to go...
And that ways to go,
it can only be accomplished in the now.
Don't give up,
For the Sake of Humanity
and for the achievement of the Gold Promise.
Remember the present
and these rewards of life,
and this universe,
and these dreams...
Saturday, July 25, 2009
The Nephilim
Genesis Chapter 6, verses 1 through 4 mentions Nephilim:
Now it came about, when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose. Then the LORD said, "My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years." The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.
They are mentioned again in Numbers chapter 13, verses 32-33, in a description of the inhabitants of Hebron:
So they gave out to the sons of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, "The land through which we have gone, in spying it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great size. There also we saw the Nephilim and we became like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight."
The Battle of Los Angeles
The Battle of Los Angeles is the name given by contemporary news agencies to a sighting of one or more unidentified flying objects which took place from late February 24 to early February 25, 1942 in which eyewitness reports of an unknown object or objects over Los Angeles, California, triggered a massive anti-aircraft artillery barrage. The Los Angeles incident occurred less than three months after America's entry into World War II as a result of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Initially the target of the aerial barrage was thought to be an attacking force from Japan, but it was later suggested to be imaginary and a case of "war nerves", a lost weather balloon, a blimp, a Japanese fire balloon or psychological warfare technique, staged for the benefit of coastal industrial sites, or even an extraterrestrial craft. The true nature of the object or objects allegedly remains "unknown".
The incident was front-page news along the U.S. Pacific coast, and earned some mass media coverage throughout the nation. One Los Angeles Herald Express writer who observed some of the incident insisted that several anti-aircraft shells had struck one of the objects, and he was stunned that the object had not been downed. Reporter Bill Henry of the Los Angeles Times wrote , "I was far enough away to see an object without being able to identify it...I would be willing to bet what shekels I have that there were a number of direct hits scored on the object."
(read more)
H.M.O.
I don't know about you but
I don't trust insurance companies to
support my best interests to begin with.
I certainly don't trust insurance companies
to provide for my health care needs in a "non-profit" way.
You know what H.M.O. stands for don't you?
Heartless
Moneymaking
Organization
The Sum of World History
THE SUM OF WORLD HISTORY
AGHA H. AMIN
No McDonalds without the force of McDonnell Douglas (F-15 fighters).
You kill the Red Indians and that is civilization, while the other is holocaust.
One Million Iraqis killed were flies and cockroaches, while 3,000 killed in 9/11 were martyrs.
You use WMDs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki but all who oppose you cannot have WMDs. Its OK if Israel has WMDs to kill the sub human Arabs but North Korea is a terrorist and Hillary Clinton who should have been sitting on Walmart's board of directors now talks about diplomacy! Funny lady!
Everything that is noble, good and altruistic is the west and everything that is bad are all those who oppose the west.
Illegal migrants legalized with force. You call it civilization :---
In 1994 Iraq complied with all of the U.N. demands including dismantling of WMD but the USA kept the sanctions leading to deaths of thousands so that oil prices stay high and benefit lackeys like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. You call this diplomacy?!
BCCI Bank, later accused of money laundering and drugs, was a major donor to the Tory Party of Britain.
Khodorovsky, the biggest swindler and crook of Russia, generously donates to neo-conservative think tanks in the USA and active members of Khodorovskys foundations are Henry Kissinger and Lord Rothschild.
Height of western civilization :---
Killing and maiming with a B-52 is civilized, while killing with an AK-47 is a terrorist attack.
As they say, "war is the terrorism of the rich and terrorism is the war of the poor."
You call this the civilized west. It stinks.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Captains of Industry
The human spirit will thrive with co-operation; Far more than with competition. So why is our society based upon competition and not co-operation?
The current economic system is based upon the masses competing with each-other for limited resources for one reason; to keep them enslaved to the system. In addition to bondage our rulers choose to keep us, in the majority, impoverished slaves. The reality is the masses have had to work harder and have had less than the few at the top since the days of the pyramids.
Economics is simply the latest word for a pyramid shaped slavery control system. Pyramid schemes and structures favor the few and control, enslave and rip off the masses. They have been using the same structure for thousands of years.
Why do you think there is a pyramid on our money with the top cut off. Money is the control system and it states their formula right in plain view for all to see.
It shows the elite at the top, and the masses at the bottom. The slave masters and the slaves.
Everything is free
Let me get this straight.......
we do all the work.......
we buy all the products.......
and they get the lions share of the profit?
That's why we need labor unions.
Make the people rich......
that will save the economy.......really.
Golden Themed Heart Sleeve
For Elan.
An unexpected kindness,
This unseen intuition.
Ever present smile says
Don’t be so serious
Accepting and relaxed
Forgiveness –themed philosophy
Speaks volumes of compassion
Rejecting slants of lethargy.
Chosen insightful naïveté
Bears friendly fruits
Contagious happiness
Healing scarred wounds
No need to explain himself
To those who do not ask
A wasted life is one
Who’s impact does not last.
An unexpected kindness,
This unseen intuition.
Ever present smile says
Don’t be so serious
Accepting and relaxed
Forgiveness –themed philosophy
Speaks volumes of compassion
Rejecting slants of lethargy.
Chosen insightful naïveté
Bears friendly fruits
Contagious happiness
Healing scarred wounds
No need to explain himself
To those who do not ask
A wasted life is one
Who’s impact does not last.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
TERROR-ISM
Terrorism is the war of the poor,
and war is the terrorism of the rich
...Sir Peter Ustinov...
Monday, July 20, 2009
Dr. Edgar Mitchell-Apollo 14
Dr. Edgar Dean Mitchell, D.Sc. (born September 17, 1930) is an American pilot, engineer, and astronaut. As the lunar module pilot of Apollo 14, he spent nine hours working on the lunar surface in the Fra Mauro Highlands region, making him the sixth man to walk on the Moon.
Mitchell was born in Hereford, Texas. He was active in the Boy Scouts of America where he achieved its second highest rank, Life Scout. He was also a member of Demolay International and has been inducted into its Hall of Fame.
Mitchell earned a Bachelor of Science degree in industrial management from Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1952. The following year he joined the US Navy where he trained as a pilot and flew off the aircraft carriers USS Bon Homme Richard and USS Ticonderoga. He later qualified as a research pilot and taught at the Navy's research pilot school. While on active duty in the Navy, he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in aeronautical engineering from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School and a Doctor of Science degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He currently resides in suburban West Palm Beach, FL.
Dr. Edgar Mitchell is a Boy Scout, Texan, scientist, Apollo astronaut, and an American hero........this is not a man who lies.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
poetic health plea
Do you feel that you are spending time you don't have to be healthy?
I am confronted with limits in ways designed to feel indebted.
What supports my existence is the need to question better, especially myself.
Dominance over impulsive thoughts projects a point of interest to share, like conversation needs participation appreciation.
Even the brain has two hemispheres to balance since it is prime example of a distribution process between concepts and real effects.
Concern can become distracted with discouragement of a judicial system, which tends to bisect into good or bad.
The process of creating immediacy is evaluation as supportive dialog which can process the vow of "for better or for worse" over a long time in the name of eternity.
Could our relationship to our country feel more supportive than marriage?
The sacrifice paradox is understood by paying respect to equality concepts.
Service Trust is the care-giving value to give credit for attention.
I'd like to believe that choice in public investment is the best way to option away private manipulative buy out that must stop expecting bail-out. The equality of attention must now be a social security assurance which can take the figures "in the red" and create the debt-less greenbacks for a new foundation of healthy attitude.
I am confronted with limits in ways designed to feel indebted.
What supports my existence is the need to question better, especially myself.
Dominance over impulsive thoughts projects a point of interest to share, like conversation needs participation appreciation.
Even the brain has two hemispheres to balance since it is prime example of a distribution process between concepts and real effects.
Concern can become distracted with discouragement of a judicial system, which tends to bisect into good or bad.
The process of creating immediacy is evaluation as supportive dialog which can process the vow of "for better or for worse" over a long time in the name of eternity.
Could our relationship to our country feel more supportive than marriage?
The sacrifice paradox is understood by paying respect to equality concepts.
Service Trust is the care-giving value to give credit for attention.
I'd like to believe that choice in public investment is the best way to option away private manipulative buy out that must stop expecting bail-out. The equality of attention must now be a social security assurance which can take the figures "in the red" and create the debt-less greenbacks for a new foundation of healthy attitude.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Truth is a Pathless Land
"I maintain that truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. That is my point of view, and I adhere to that absolutely and unconditionally. Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or to coerce people along any particular path. If you first understand that, then you will see how impossible it is to organize a belief. A belief is purely an individual matter, and you cannot and must not organize it. If you do, it becomes dead, crystallized; it becomes a creed, a sect, a religion, to be imposed on others " Jiddu Krishnamurti
Monday, July 13, 2009
The Unfinished Species
We are a disastrously unfinished species. We are hardwired with tendencies that do not serve us well in the twenty-first century. The human species can be extremely aggressive, xenophobic, petty, acquisitive, obsessive and often delusional. These are attributes that may have served early humans well in the primeval competition for survival. But that is in the past. We have supposedly tamed nature to the point at which our unabated intervention in the flow of natural processes is now endangering our own collective survival. We have proclaimed ourselves to be free, yet vast numbers of individuals are tied to the yolk of a failed vision in regards to human commerce and political infrastructure. We believe ourselves to be released from the restraints imposed by superstition, yet the motivation for living remains tethered to a profound subservience to a superhuman superhero in the guise of what is referred to as God. We pride ourselves in the advancements made in science, our understanding of the workings of the natural world, yet we are clueless about our own inner workings.
Without a deep understanding of our own essential natures, we will never be freed from the disastrous future that will necessarily come from our own collective and profound ignorance. There is an immense beauty and simplicity that underlies our conscious life and that is accessible through the inner workings of the intellect. Living without an appreciation for the life of the mind, is an incomplete life at best. This reality lies, in my mind, at the very heart of education. In essence, understanding how to think and how to utilize the vast resources of the intellect, how to discipline and corral the barrage of emotions, impulses and affectations that undermine our well being both individually and as a group can provide release from the savage wheel of human history upon which we seemed to be impaled.
Without a deep understanding of our own essential natures, we will never be freed from the disastrous future that will necessarily come from our own collective and profound ignorance. There is an immense beauty and simplicity that underlies our conscious life and that is accessible through the inner workings of the intellect. Living without an appreciation for the life of the mind, is an incomplete life at best. This reality lies, in my mind, at the very heart of education. In essence, understanding how to think and how to utilize the vast resources of the intellect, how to discipline and corral the barrage of emotions, impulses and affectations that undermine our well being both individually and as a group can provide release from the savage wheel of human history upon which we seemed to be impaled.
A Sea of Plastic
Just for worldwide consumption of bottled water in 2004 alone it took roughly 87.4 million barrels of oil. You can imagine that with statistics for 2008, we have a figure in the hundreds of millions of barrels of oil being used just to produce bottled water. Don't buy water in plastic bottles, water is free!
America and the world’s addiction to plastic doesn’t end there. Plastic bags take oil, just like plastic bottles to produce. Currently the U.S. consumes 100 billion plastic shopping bags in a year and worldwide consumption is estimated to be from 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags a year. That is roughly 1 million plastic bags a minute being consumed and less than 1% is recycled. If we legalize hemp we could make bags from a profitable and sustainable source and avoid wasting all that oil and energy making "trash that lasts forever."
I guess it's okay to pollute our waters now because, "we can $ell them clean water in a pla$tic bottle." Clean water is a right, not a commodity to be exploited. I bet next they will try to $ell us air and fire and dirt.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
California Marijuana Tax
Assemblyman Tom Ammiano will announce legislation on Monday to legalize marijuana and earn perhaps $1 billion annually by taxing it.
Quintin Mecke, Ammiano's press secretary, confirmed to SF Weekly that the assemblyman's 10 a.m. Monday press conference regarding "new legislation related to the state's fiscal crisis" will broach the subject of reaping untold -- and much-needed -- wealth from the state's No. 1 cash crop.
Mecke said Ammiano's proposed bill "would remove all penalties in California law on cultivation, transportation, sale, purchase, possession, or use of marijuana, natural THC, or paraphernalia for persons over the age of 21."
The bill would additionally prohibit state and local law officials from enforcing federal marijuana laws. As for Step Two -- profit -- Ammiano's bill calls for "establishing a fee on the sale of marijuana at a rate of $50 per ounce." Mecke said that would bring in roughly $1 billion for the state, according to estimates made by marijuana advocacy organizations.
Catch-22
You're damned if you do
and you're damned if you don't
you have to be crazy
to live in an insane world
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Some Life
From July 6th to July 10th I was at something my church calls Kids Kamp.
Last year I didn't know what to expect, but it was a great escape from a troubled mind.
This year though it was no escape, what it was, was a wonderful experience.
So today I say "for the sake of the kids",
and "for the sake of my love and the love of others":
We can't give up.
Things can change.
People do grow up,
and others can.
Life is about the maintenance of life.
There's gotta be a balance.
And you gotta know what your doing.
Good luck, cause we all need some of mine sometimes.
I wish I could say more, by I truly can't.
This experience, can it be put into words?
!!!
Friday, July 10, 2009
"SiCKO"
SiCKO is a 2007 documentary film by American film maker Michael Moore. The film investigates the American health care system, focusing on its health insurance and pharmaceutical industry. The film compares the for-profit, non-universal U.S. system with the non-profit universal health care systems of Canada, the United Kingdom, France and Cuba.
Sicko opened to positive reviews, but also generated criticism and controversy. Some policy specialists have praised the film while others have criticized the film for its positive portrayal of the publicly funded health systems of Canada, the United Kingdom and Cuba, and for its negative portrayal of the health care system in the United States.
In his first television interview since leaving the health insurance industry, Wendell Potter tells Bill Moyers why he left his successful career as the head of Public Relations for CIGNA, one of the nation's largest insurers, and decided to speak out against the industry. "I didn't intend to [speak out], until it became really clear to me that the industry is resorting to the same tactics they've used over the years.
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