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Tuesday Open Thread
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At least one more healthcare post that you MUST read, and I’m out. Hopefully.
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Tuesday Open Thread
Stop making Sense!
Do you care what type of "reform" is passed or just that any type of "reform" is passed. Forcing people to buy more private health care is not health care reform, it's a health care scam. I'm proud that congressman Kucinich voted against this financial bonanza for the insurance companies.
"What really happened is that Kucinich wants attention and wants to be holier and purer than everyone else. I'd have to hold my nose to vote this bill, too, but look around, Dennis. You're all alone. Again"
Yea Kucinich really sucks - imagine, one of the few members of Congress who actually CONSISTENTLY supports his positions with his votes without capitulating to the bullying of Republicans or political cowards and opportunist like Obama, Pelosi or Rahm Emanuel. It's pathetic you insult congressman Kucinich for sticking to his principals by suggesting he just "wants attention" or to pejoratively say he's trying to be "holier and purer". Instead of showing support for someone who's principled like Kucinich, people like you rather continue to throw your support behind liars like Obama (remember how strongly he opposed mandates during the campaign, of course not, lol) and his Democrat puppets who do nothing but engage in half-measures.
by Jonathan Cohn
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2009/11/8/02...
[This is a challenge to the Black bloghesphere that it is more than the appearance of diversity in the netroots. Artur Davis should be public enemy number one. His vote against HRC was a betrayal to his mostly poor black constituents and by extension poor black people across this country. For what?! A symbolic run for governor!
My challenge to the black bloghesphere is to prove they can do more than just repeat talking points from Kos. The DNC, the White House, Democratic donors, civil rights organizations, the two Reverends et al should be put on notice that not a damn dime or an ounce of support should go to Artur Davis' campaign. He should pay the price that any white representative would pay if he was representing the same black district and voted against their interests. Not only should funding be withheld, he should be primaried by a white progressive with the full support of the civil rights community and black bloghesphere.
by NMP on Sun Nov 8th, 2009 at 11:37:13 AM EST]
Well black folks we just got our orders from the man.
I agree with NMP that davis should be held accountable for last night. Hell if he did that to his district, just imagine what he will do to black folks as governor to keep the racists happy.
What I do not like about NMP's comment is this part, "My challenge to the black bloghesphere is to prove they can do more than just repeat talking points from Kos." Quite frankly that comment rubs me the wrong way.
It's like she is implying that black bloggers can not think for themselves and have to take orders from Kos in order to function.
trose you are so on point, that folks even raising the Davis issue should be beat into the color of the next nationality.
The "white progressives/liberals" are on my watch list. From what I have seen of KOS and his crew is suspect.
i knew I was done with him on that day.
just checked - Bishop voted YEAH.
“When I sign this in the Rose Garden, each and every one of you will be able to look back and say, ‘This was my finest moment in politics.’”
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/health-care/s...
"At its core, the measure would create a federally regulated marketplace where consumers could shop for coverage. In the bill's most controversial provision, the government would sell insurance, although the Congressional Budget Office forecasts that premiums for it would be more expensive than for policies sold by private companies."
"it would be more expensive than for policies sold by private companies."
Are you kidding me?! The bill essentially deters the few people eligible for government run health care from participating in government run health care because of inflated cost. What happened to the so called support for the Public Option that Obama and Democrats in Congress said they had? Where is this so called support represented in this bill? Why are the Democrats providing more customers and further enriching people like Aetna, Blue Cross and United States Health and calling it "reform"?
Finally, getting rid of preexisting conditions and age discriminatory practices will not prevent the insurance companies from creating new unethical loopholes to make money - especially now that almost ALL Americans will be legally required to buy their services, lol. As long as the insurance companies maintain over 95 percent of the market, there will be no real incentive for them to provide decent affordable universal coverage for American citizens who desperately need that coverage.
Obama and Congress are selling American people's health out to the insurance companies because of political cowardice, fear and for future campaign donations in 2010 and 2012 respectively ( I hope they lose both elections! - they're worse than the Republicans who do nothing). Anyone who doesn't see this given the facts thus far is foolish or dreaming.
…
selling American people's health out to the insurance companies because of political cowardice, fear and for future campaign donations in 2010 and 2012 respectively ( I hope they lose both elections! - they're worse than the Republicans who do nothing). Anyone who doesn't see this given the facts thus far is foolish or dreaming.
For the record I am ignorant of your HC system.
Do you think it is better to have politicians who do nothing, than having those who do a thing, albeit compromise?
Is this the END of the world?
Can't this bill be enhanced in the future (into one that favors you)?
And if it work as advertised couldn't it evolve into one eve bolder?
Judging by the skewed view regarding human rights by much of your fellow citizen (Ronald Reagan said a better HC is having a work!; and he was a mediocre actor.), a compromised (by yr. standard) HC bill has any worth?
… I was kidding.
Bardo, from bar ‘interval’ + do ‘two.’ is (in Tibetan Buddhism) an indeterminate, transitional state of existence between death and rebirth.
If any harms befalls either one of them while they're there, then I'll know why this entire tragedy, and all of its shoddy and irresponsible reporting and the important details that don't add up, rubbed me the wrong way from the get go.
ABC's "This Week" — Democratic National Chairman Tim Kaine and Republican National Chairman Michael Steele; Army chief of staff Gen. George Casey.
___
CBS' "Face the Nation" _Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J.; former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas; Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla.
___
NBC's "Meet the Press" — Govs. Haley Barbour, R-Miss., and Ed Rendell, D-Pa.
___
CNN's "State of the Union" — Army chief of staff Casey; Virginia Gov.-elect Bob McDonnell.
"Fox News Sunday" _ McDonnell; Sen. Joe Lieberman, Connecticut independent; Reps. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., and Mike Pence, R-Ind.
it repeats again at 5pm EST, and 6 am EST on Monday morning.
Completely off-topic. Happy belated birthday - I hope you enjoyed a fabulous day!
In theory, had the LHC been fully operational, this latest incident could have caused a catastrophic breakdown like that which occurred shortly after it was first switched on last year. On Sept. 19, 2008, just days after the Hadron’s launch, a small piece of electrical cable providing power to the magnets broke loose, ending a shower of sparks across the wiring, causing a year-long breakdown
The failure of LHC to get to full particle-smashing so far is a relief to some cientists, who fear the experiment could cause several tiny black holes to form, hich would grow and devour the entire Earth. The succession of technical roblems the LHC has suffered has led yet other physicists, like Dr. Holger Bech eilson of the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen speculating that the manufacture f Higgs bosons may be so “abhorrent” to nature,” as Dennis Overbye wrote in the New York Times, that their creation would cause ripples backward through time to stop the collider before it could produce one, much like the paradox of a time traveler going back in time to halt his own birth by killing his grandfather.
Large Hadron Collider oiled by bread crumb dropped by passing bird
It seems former nuclear safety officer Walter Wagner and Luis Sancho were right when they went to court in March 2008 to stop the startup of this "big bang machine".
-Montgomery Scott
Andrew created Conservapedia which is the conservative’s answer to Wikipedia, an on line encyclopedia that Andrew believes has a liberal bias. Conservapedia, however, is more than a conservative encyclopedia. It has undertaken the translation of the Bible that will correct the liberal infusion of thought that now permeates that book. This it turns out, is no minor task because the King James Version (KJV) and the New International Version (NIV) have so many examples of a liberal bias that correcting them is an enormous challenge. Although its work has just drawn attention, it is already well underway. As of this writing, of the 8000 verses in the New Testament 30% or 2400 verses have been translated. (The word “translate” has a different meaning for Conservapedia than for most scholars. KJV is the baseline text used for “developing a conservative translation” rather than the “original Greek or Hebrew”.)
The work is being done by very sophisticated people who are able to translate verses from the KJV that make the verses more understandable to the contemporary reader while, simultaneously, removing the liberal influence. Two newly translated verses make the point. In Matthew 4:19 and 20 the KJV has the following confusing passage that displays a distinct liberal bias. It reads as follows: “And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. And they straightway left their nets, and followed him.” The new, much clearer and less liberal translation by Conservapedia reads as follows: “And he told them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men. And immediately they left their fishing nets behind and followed Him.”
Although the translations were done by highly sophisticated translators, Mr. Schafly recognizes the importance of public input in such a significant project. Thus, in the description of the project that lists which Gospels have been completely translated, it notes, parenthetically next to the name of the Gospel that has been translated: “improvements welcome.” That is egalitarian, suggesting, as it does, that coming up with a better translation of the KJV or the NIM is not limited to a few pointy headed scholars but can be assisted by the likes of you and me, even if we know nothing of Hebrew or Greek.
Defining the scope of the project, Conservapedia says there are three major sources of error. The most significant is that Greek and Hebrew lacked the words to adequately “convey new concepts introduced by Christ.” A footnote embellishes on this, explaining that “Christianity introduced powerful new concepts that even the Greek and Hebrew were inadequate to express, but modern conservative language can express well.” The second source of error (apparently contradicting the first) says the rewriting is necessary because of the “lack of precision in modern language.” The truth of that is demonstrated by reexamining the passage from Matthew quoted above. Finally, there was a translation bias in converting the original language to modern language. The three errors are, says Conservapedia, easily addressed.
The first error is cured by using experts in ancient language (and you and me by letting us suggest improvements). Linguists are able to cure the second type of error. But the “third—and largest—source of translation error requires conservative principles to reduce and eliminate.” A footnote to that sentence observes that professors and higher education participants were involved in the NIV and could be “expected to be liberal and feminist in outlook” thus producing a Bible influenced more by political correctness and other liberal distortions than by genuine examination of the oldest manuscripts.”
Conservapedia sets out 10 guidelines that a conservative translation of the Bible will satisfy. They include providing a “thought-for-thought translation without corruption by liberal bias”, avoidance of “gender inclusive” language and “other modern emasculation of Christianity”, not “dumbing down the reading level”, and use of conservative terms to capture the “original intent.” (That is similar to adhering to the “original intent” of the U.S. Constitution favored by Antonin Scalia.) One way of getting back to original intent is to “utilize “powerful new conservative terms. . . .Defective translations use the word ‘comrade’ three times as often as ‘volunteer’.”
It is impossible in a few words to do justice to Mr. Schafly’s effort. It is worth going to the website linked above in order to enjoy the full flavor of this very important work by a few dedicated Christians. Some of my more creative readers may even want to accept the invitation to offer their own suggestions on how this new Bible can be improved.
The Bible-New and Improved
Targets for removal:
* Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. [Matthew 5:9]
* Resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. [Matthew 5:39]
* I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despite-fully use you, and persecute you; [Matthew 5:44]
* If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to cast a stone at her. [John 8:7]
* Do not judge, lest you too be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. [Matthew 7:1 & 2.]
* Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy [Matthew 5:7]
* But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. [Matthew 6:15]
* Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. [Luke 12.15.]
* Truly, I say unto you, it will be hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. [Matthew 19:23]
* You cannot serve both God and Money. [Matthew 6:24.]
* Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s. [Matthew 22:21]
* Love your neighbor as yourself. .[Matthew 22:39]
* So in everything, do to others as you would have them do to you. [Matthew 7:12.]
* If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. [Matthew 19:21]
* But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just. [Luke 14:13&14.]
It will be a HIT, i am sure.
Nothing new, isn't the Bible itself an encyclopedia, compiling older scriptures, much of which originated far further away from Israel?
When will people start shaping the future minding the present with relative importance as well?
Maybe the true reason is to sway away from Romanization of the words of Christ by the Vatican, Christianity was imported adapted and ratified by europeans.
These zealous want to restore it to its Jew heritage and strip it of any human right instance or free will?
??
No, they just want to SELL their values/interests.
At the peak of the financial crisis, taxpayer money guaranteed assets worth $4.3 trillion to help banks ride out the panic. The programs, which essentially provided insurance against losses, helped stabilize financial markets but put far more taxpayer dollars at risk than Congress intended, according to the Congressional Oversight Panel.
The report, released Friday, says the guarantee programs became the single largest part of the government's effort to calm the markets. And even though many of the programs have now expired, the guarantees still provide invisible government subsidies even to healthy banks, according to the report.
The panel makes periodic assessments of how Treasury is managing the $700 billion financial bailout Congress approved last year.
Guarantees "put more power in the hands" of Treasury and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. because "they're not limited by the number of dollars Congress will authorize," panel chairwoman Elizabeth Warren said in a call with reporters.
The Treasury Department leveraged limited bailout money to insure assets worth many times more. That allowed officials to risk far more taxpayer money than Congress intended, Warren said.
Taxpayers risked trillions at height of crisis
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1126594.html
PM heads to U.S. under threat of Palestinian statehood declaration
By Barak Ravid and Natasha Mozgovaya
Tags: Netanyahu in Washington
Concerns are growing in Israel's government over the possibility of a unilateral Palestinian declaration of independence within the 1967 borders, a move which could potentially be recognized by the United Nations Security Council.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently asked the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama to veto any such proposal, after reports reached Jerusalem of support for such a declaration from major European Union countries, and apparently also certain U.S. officials.
The reports indicated that Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has reached a secret understanding with the Obama administration over U.S. recognition of an independent Palestinian state. Such recognition would likely transform any Israeli presence across the Green Line, even in Jerusalem, into an illegal incursion to which the Palestinians would be entitled to engage in measures of self-defense.
In late August Fayyad presented the international community with a detailed plan for building up Palestinian Authority institutions and set a timetable of up to two years for its implementation. Senior Israeli officials said Fayyad's plan initially met with positive reaction in Jerusalem for its emphasis on institution-building and making security services more efficient.
But some Israeli officials told Haaretz that alongside the clauses reported in the media - which are similar to elements of Netanyahu's call for "economic peace" between Israel and the Palestinians - Fayyad's plan also contains a classified, unreleased portion stipulating a unilateral declaration of independence.
The plan specifies that at the end of a designated period for bolstering national institutions the PA, in conjunction with the Arab League, would file a "claim of sovereignty" to the UN Security Council and General Assembly over the borders of June 4, 1967 (before the outbreak of the Six-Day War, during which Israel took control of the West Bank and Gaza).
Fayyad is also seeking a new Security Council resolution to replace Resolutions 242 and 338 in the hope of winning the international community's support for the borders of a Palestinian state and applying stronger pressure on Israel to withdraw from the West Bank.
Several Israeli officials told Haaretz that Fayyad had spoken to them of positive responses he had received over the plan from prominent EU member states, including the United Kingdom, France, Spain and Sweden. Fayyad added that he presented the proposal to the U.S. administration and did not receive any signal of opposition in response.
Netanyahu's "kitchen cabinet" has held a number of meetings on the matter in recent months. "It's a very dangerous move," said a senior Israeli foreign-policy official. "More and more cabinet ministers understand that diplomatic inaction on Israel's part is likely to bring international support for the Fayyad program."
Israeli sources said Netanyahu discussed the proposal in meetings with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and special Mideast envoy George Mitchell and requested that the U.S. tell Fayyad that it would not support his proposal and would veto it in the Security Council. Netanyahu has yet to receive a clear response from Washington on its stance on Fayyad's plan.
Netanyahu is to arrive in Washington today for a brief visit. He is scheduled to address the United Jewish Communities General Assembly, preceded by Defense Minister Ehud Barak.
On Tuesday Netanyahu is to fly to Paris, where he is scheduled to meet with President Nicolas Sarkozy on Wednesday. The prime minister's Paris visit comes just two days before that of Syrian President Bashar Assad, who will also meet with Sarkozy. Netanyahu has not signaled interest in renewing negotiations with Damascus, but stagnation in talks with the Palestinians may force him to do so.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, a mediator between Israel and Syria during Ehud Olmert's term as prime minister, said Friday in Paris that Turkey seeks to resume its role as an intermediary between the two countries, and that his government can be an "honest broker" in such talks.
Netanyahu has expressed reluctance over Turkish mediation due to ongoing diplomatic tension between Ankara and Jerusalem.
Just keep in mind that the Holocaust occurred primarily in central and eastern Europe and it was not the overarching event of World War II nor were the Palestinians involved.
I have to take my boys to Game Stop to buy X-Box codes.
they don't want JPAC to even have a whisper of a voice.
----me sitting here with mouth open
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/ny...l?ref=ny...
Early one morning in March, the law banged on the door of an apartment on Thompson Street in Greenwich Village. Investigators had a warrant to arrest Raphael Haim Golb and seize his computer. He was caught red-handed.
Mr. Golb is, or was, a guerrilla fighter in a cyberbrawl over the Dead Sea Scrolls, a war about the origins of 2,000-year-old documents that has consumed the energy of academics around the globe.
He was being arrested for fighting dirty.
Mr. Golb is 49 years old and had 50 e-mail aliases. He used pseudonyms to post on blogs. Under the name of a professor he was trying to undermine, prosecutors charged, Mr. Golb wrote a quasi confession to plagiarism and circulated it among students and officials at New York University.
His purpose, the Manhattan district attorney’s office said, was “to influence and affect debate on the Dead Sea Scrolls, and in order to harass Dead Sea Scrolls scholars who disagree with his viewpoint.”
In the classic 1993 New Yorker cartoon by Peter Steiner, two dogs are perched in front of a computer screen. “On the Internet,” one says to the other, “nobody knows you’re a dog.”
For a while, no one knew that 50 different names in the Dead Sea Scrolls debate were the prolific Mr. Golb, a graduate of Oberlin College who has a law degree from New York University and a doctorate in comparative literature from Harvard (dissertation: “The Problems of Privacy and Trust in Modern Literature, and their Relation to the Idea of Freedom”).
In court papers filed last week, Mr. Golb’s lawyers argued that prosecutors were trying to criminalize the commonplace. Both sides in the Dead Sea Scrolls debate, they said, use “sock puppets” — fake identities — on the Internet to make it seem as if scores of people are arguing a point.
“These bloggers marshaled their legion of sock puppets to engage in intellectual combat with the sock puppets allegedly created by Raphael Golb and others,” the lawyers wrote.
No other creatures in the animal kingdom behave like this, not when the stakes are lower than food or mating or survival. And here’s a bonus: a thread of the Shakespearean runs through the case.
Mr. Golb’s father is Norman Golb, a professor at the University of Chicago and a critic of claims that the Dead Sea Scrolls were the work of a sect called the Essenes, thought to have lived near the Qumran caves where the scrolls were found. Professor Golb has suggested that the scrolls were actually the product of several libraries in Jerusalem and were taken to the caves around the time the city fell to the Romans in the year 70. This is not a dispute for the fainthearted. Golb the Son has taken up his father’s cause with all the vigor permitted by multiple Gmail accounts.
When he was arrested, Mr. Golb was asked by prosecutors if he wrote under the name “Charles Gadda,” one of the most visible Internet advocates for his father. He would not answer directly.
“They would say that my father is doing it or asking me to do it,” Mr. Golb said, according to court papers. “My father certainly never asked me to do anything of the kind.”
But he allowed that “Charles Gadda” was doing pretty well. “Do you realize that the Charles Gadda articles have been read by thousands of people?” Mr. Golb continued. “I know that, because I look at them, it says on them.”
The Internet is, of course, both gold mine and sludge pile, where people lie about their ages, their abilities, the world. The prosecutors say that by adopting all those false identities, Mr. Golb was trying to obtain a benefit, and so committed criminal impersonation, identity theft and aggravated harassment. But Mr. Golb’s lawyers maintain that there was no tangible benefit, and therefore no crime.
“Gaining an advantage in academic debate about the Dead Sea Scrolls is not the kind of benefit required by the law,” said Ronald Kuby, one of the defense lawyers.
But what about the injury Mr. Golb apparently tried to inflict on Lawrence H. Schiffman, the chairman of Judaic studies at N.Y.U.? Someone wrote from larry.schiffman@gmail.com to Professor Schiffman’s graduate students and dean, alerting them to an article that suggested he had committed plagiarism. Perhaps two things go without saying: The article was actually written under one of Raphael Golb’s pseudonyms, and Professor Schiffman has been critical of the theories of Golb père.
The defense claims that the e-mail messages were transparent parodies, and that in any event, injury to a reputation is a civil matter, not a criminal violation.
“He writes letters in my names in which I am admitting to horrendous offenses,” Professor Schiffman said Friday. “This is the rough-and-tumble of the Internet?”
That 1993 cartoon could use an update. On the Internet today, everybody knows you’re a dog.
"With medical ghostwriting, pharmaceutical companies pay both professional writers to produce papers, and other scientists or physicians to attach their names to these papers, which are then published in a medical or scientific journal. These scientists or physicians often have little involvement in the research or the writing process."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGp043tHAc8&feat...
Have a good sunday
The second panel was great. Michael Eric Dyson brought up great concerns and questions. His thoughts on Obama and race were on point.
BTW who is the other Black guy sitting next to Barbara Lee that guy is good. Brother is analytical and knows his politics. Where has he been hiding? I have never seen him on CNN or MSNBC.
The bolded part is WHY you've never seen him on CNN or MSNBC.