Last Thursday the UN Security Council adopted a resolution aiming to create a nuclear-free world. President Obama announced it at the UN Summit in New York.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kL98h6zebY&feature=fvw

This news went mostly unnoticed, even though they concern all of us, regardless of where we live or what political thinking we follow.

It seems to me like an extremely difficult thing to achieve. There would have to be something like the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in place, and it would require signing and ratification by all member states of the UN.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprehensive_Nuclear-Test-Ban_Treaty

http://www.ctbto.org/

At the present time Iran has signed the treaty but not ratified it. North Korea, Pakistan and India have not signed it. The Us and Israel have signed it, but not ratified it. China dn Russia have signed it and ratified it. It is meaningless since the treaty does not come into force until all member states both sign and ratify the treaty.

Barack Obama said during his electoral campaign that he would attempt to convince the Senate to ratify the treaty once he became elected.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=nuclear-testing-is-an-acceptable-risk

I think it will be difficult for him to convince law makers and the Ameican public that ratifying the treaty is in the best interests of the US. I think the political sentiment is that the US needs to keep the option of testing open. Specially in light of the testing done during the Bush administration. Reliable bunker-busting nuclear missiles was one of the objectives in nuclear weapons research done by the US during the last 10 years.

Those countries (like Iran and North Korea) attempting to get nuclear weapons are likely to reject the treaty. So will countries that use nuclear weapons as a deterrent against their neighbors (Pakistan, India, Israel).

I think that if President Obama can convince the Senate, then the treaty will be more acceptable to many countries that are refusing to ratify the treaty. I would be curious to think whether any of you think we could achieve a nuclear-free world. What would it take? Should the nuclear superpowers make the first steps and solid commitments? Or should the countries with nuclear ambitions give up their pursuit of nuclear weapons first?

(V): you may want to double check this info...in order to sell insurance in the state of NY...an insurance company must have its home office in the state of New York.
I dont think this law stops them from selling outside of NY.

Ferris Bueller: This is what gets me.. it is endorsed. Fox knows that there is a small percentage of right wing psychopaths (just as Art says there is a loony left) who do not think. They've been conditioned into believing an ideology that is based on hate, fear and anger at anything that is perceived to threaten this ideology, and use the likes of Beck to say "I'm right.. this TV star says so, it's ok, to hate the Muslim, it's ok to hate liberals.. Beck says so"..

As such Fox cannot say they do not know there will be incidents, just as much as a 'rogue Muslim cleric cannot say he didn't know his words of hatred for the west will not inspire some psychotic person who's 'idol' is Islam and is too stupid to know right from wrong goes and tries to kill in the name of Allah.

We were lucky over here.. some white supremacist got drunk before bombing his targets and got stopped by the police and searched. He had two bombs on him he made in the bedroom he lived in at his parents house.

(V):  I agree with that statement.  Much of what is spewed by Beck, Limbaugh & their colleagues on right represent reckless & irresponsible speech.   Beck himself has stated he fantasized on his show about killing someone.  The statement was of course hypothetical but irresponsible.  

As for disturbed people going on shooting sprees from obsessing over this type of garbage, it has already happened.  Last year a man who walked into a Unitarian Church in Knoxville TN & opened fire.  He said he did it to kill "liberals" in the trenches.  The authorities found books & literature written by these "shock-jocks" on the right.   I happen to know some of the people affected.  So don't give me this crap about how they care only about policies.  No, they can't be directly blamed for such acts.  Ultimately, it was done by the individual.  But, these instigators, who are paid great sums of money to get people in a frenzy, can incite violence & they do!  We Americans need to be  a little more careful who we worship.

Artful Dodger: So why are you against the markets being opened up and more competition?

And as such, from what I have read.. it seems alot of lobbying is going on, and from the last time (in Clinton's presidency) healthcare reform was tried.... the lobbyists worked overtime to stop it and were paying off politicians (especially on the Republican side by the news) left right and centre.

Yes.. there is corruption in government and in business.

"It cost him nothing. He had some costs, but they were minimal."

It didn't cost him nothing then.

"And there are some health care companies that are not for profit. "

So was Help the aged back when it got exposed for swallowing about 75% of all the money donated in admin costs...

Artful Dodger:

I agree with you in that competition would force companies to shape up. An inefficient, poorly manged company would fail, at least in theory. In practice mismangamengt can be resilient and survive, but that is not the point. I just wonder the not-for-profit insurers can compete with the capital of insurers that operate strictly for profit. I imagine that if they are efficient and preperly capitalized they have a fighting chance.

I think that the inability of insurers to sell across state lines is probably a throwback to decentralization of government. Since different states operate under different laws, some insurers could operate in a different way depending on which state they are based on. To allow insurers to operate across state lines would require all states to harmonize their legislation and to many state legislators that might feel like big federal government intruding on local legislation.

At the same time, companies operating in some states might feel that they lose thier monopolistic legal advantage if companies from other states can suddenly compete against them. They will lobby to keep the law as it is.

It is a complex problem. If the solution were simple this debate would have ended decades ago. Countries like Canada came up with a workable public healthcare system in the 1950s and 1960s because they did not have to deal with the legal complexity of harminizing the law across 50 states.

I think that ultimately the US will find a solution that is uniquely proper to American reality itself. Somewhere in all this the US will find its balance between the public and the private sector. Perhaps the sense of urgency comes from 2010, the years in which people born in 1945 turn 65 years old. Economists see this as the start of the baby boomer generation reaching retirement age, and the pressures on the healthcare and pension systems will be great. 2010-2020 will be the years that will define whether the private sector can truly cope with high demand for healthcare services being met at low, stable prices.

Artful Dodger:

> The government is a far worse option.

I think we would have to be very naive if we think that the private sector is free from corruption. Historically, the private sector has existed for one and only one purpose: profit.

Health insurance companies did not go into that business to give away free health care. They went into that line because it makes them a lot of money. If that business were not profitable, they would have left it long ago.

Money has one effect on people. It can bring the worst out of them. If at some point private health insurers make the wrong business decisions, they could find themselves going bankrupt. When that happens million of people could face being without healthcare and just as with banks, the government (that is taxpayers) will be called in to bail them out.

To me it is not a matter of "if" it will happen but a matter of "when". Health insurance companies are financial institutions, just like banks. They deal with billions of dollars and they hedge positions against the financial markets, just like banks do.

I am convinced that the United States (and the rest of the world) will have to learn the lesson the hard way, just as we have done with banks. Maybe my views are too negative, but considering that the collpase of the banking system has happened several times in the past, I am led to believe that we as human beings repeat the mistakes over and over.

It will take the failure of a big insurer, and people lining up outside their offices demanding for services that the company will not be able to provide because they squandered their customers money out of greed and unwise investments. Is it unthinkable? As unthinkable as Enron collapsing, or the biggest banks in the world begging the Federal Reserve to give them billions of dollars to bail them out.

Is the government any better? That is a good question. Capitalist governments insist on contracting out services, and that makes things more expensive because the contractors called on to provide those services skin taxpayers alive. Then, where there is big money there is big corruption, and government employees can be just as greedy and stupid as anybody else.

Is there a solution? I think that if the government is not able to create a reliable public healthcare system, then there have to strict checks on what healthcare insurance companies do because if those companies fail their customers could find themselves with no coverage at all, and no government system to fall back on. Probably a hybrid system has to be in place, with government and private insurers working together. Unfortunately, at the present time greed is in the way of better judgement and the political environment is in favor of private insurance.

Over the next ten years millions of baby boomers will retire and enter the later stages of life. The pressure on private health insurers will become enourmous as the baby boomer generation ages in big numbers and the cost of providing services skyrockets. At some point the cost will exceed the profits that these companies make from their external invesments. Then these companies will start failing one after the other because for insurance to work, profits have to exceed costs.

Artful Dodger:

> We need fresh blood in congress. the old guard are out of touch.

This is very true. The latest election saw clear signs of this. I think it is why people voted for Obama, rather than Hilary Clinton or John McCain. People want to see change. I think it also explains for Sarah Palin's popularity. She is a new face, even if much of her rethoric and ideology represents traditional values.

A good question is whether the Republicans can provide a candidate able to unseat Barack Obama. I imagine that if Sarah Palin intend to be president then she will have to battle hard in the televised debates. She will also have to overcome certain disadvantages such as lack of experience in foreign policy.

There is the possibility of other up-and-comers gaining ground. If people really want change, they might opt for different political parties such as the Green Party and the Reform Party. It will be very interesting to see how that election unfolds.

Artful Dodger: What really blocks the progress is this silly "feelgood-syndrome". People content themself with talking about compassion they don't actually feel, as everything would be done. Switzerland is too rich for wake up calls, lazy boring idiots while people who struggle are not few

gogul: I could admit that some of top politicians are not aware how much out of line they are, but among them there are criminals, and they need to get stopped. The ways this world goes is a stray. Still.

Artful Dodger: I think I read you right. The other way around you could speak about equality. From my point of vue, equality will cost something, not to the poor, not to the middle class. My point of vue, of course I get news made for Europeans. Today you hear the politicians talking about the need of reforms, social equity, the need to do more for environment. All things they closed their eyes from the past 30 years, things they don't even understand something about (like nuclear power, a Sarcozy simply fades out knowledge about nuclear power, and deals like a cracy with it) and continue to close their eyes about. It's pure hypocrisy what you hear from the establishments these days, the collateral law making of the very same days is the language I take for full. I don't have nothing from policicians speaking out their false minds, but their laws SUCK me like the need of vampires, and it's obvious that it is very rich global actors who bought and buy the governments. Living at the top of the babel tower is their natural pleasure. It's a waste of time to get mad about food stamps and how much this costs the tax payers. 1 mill of the robbed fortune of this topclass would finance this, but of course that's not a solution. The redistribution of wealth upwards is a constant process within the lawmaking. Young politicians need to get strait about, the established ones are lost. The very same people who created this last banking crisis, or created the social mess in Germany, are not taking responsability today, all they try is to save their skin while searching a way to continue the abuse.

Artful Dodger: Then part of the problem is private intrusion on the government.

Such is illegal openly over here and those caught lose their heads.

And until the two are separate there is no way you can say it's all the governments fault. Do you have notes, video's of all the meetings with lobbyists?

In the end it's all just opinion. But by UK standards.. it's illegal.

Artful Dodger: lobbyists.

Artful Dodger: Help the aged was.

And that does not prove anything. Your health companies have policies to cancel policies over silly reasons.... "you can't have chemo as you didn't tell us you had gallstones"....

... "I didn't know I had gallstones".

Prove to me that the private sector can be trusted to run social programs without fraud.. "death panels" and overcharging through monopolies.

(V):Madoff was involved in social programs??? 

Artful Dodger: You said..

"Nothing the government ever does with regard to social programs works. They all go bankrupt."

I said... "Sure.. compared to whom? Show me figures that prove corruption in big companies is better than government... don't forget Madoff, the off shore accounts and other known fraud in your compilation."

You are stating nothing the government does works? or just the bits you don't like..

I heard you can't cuddle a bag of money and get love!!

(V):  There's nothing to prove.  I never made the claim you challenged.  And you of all people don't get a pass on the "show me" request.  I think your favorite reply on this is: I've already explained that.  

Artful Dodger: I was.. asking you to use ya fingers.. or is it 'liberals' that are the only ones to prove something??

(V):  You could try just being rational. 

Artful Dodger: Do I have to resort to pantomime talk??

(V):   Nope.  

Artful Dodger: Yeah... I have a night off searching and ask a republican do stand up and prove a point and nothing.

stonewalling!!

Artful Dodger: zzzzzzzzzz

Artful Dodger: Private and public.. ya know my thread.

Still no figures.

1000's of building companies here cheating everyone for many many years..

The possibility of no fraud in the private sector is zilch.

Prove me wrong!!

(V):
Why is the government a worse option? Fraud and incompetence are everywhere.

Artful Dodger: Why is the government a worse option? Fraud and incompetence are everywhere.

I would like to see some figures comparing the fraud and incompetence in business against that in the public sector.

Back up your claim. It's your turn to prove things.. I'm always getting the job!!

(V):  Wrong again.  My words:

The government is a far worse option.

Nothing the government ever does with regard to social programs works. 
They all go bankrupt.  They are a bunch of incompetents.  It will end
up costing the US taxpayer far more than most are currently paying. 
and it's a fact that anyone can get health care treatment in America
regardless of the ability to pay.

Your false claim:  No. your statement was that government is worse than private in fraud and overpricing.

See, you've created a strawman.  Nice try.  But I never said that.  You either don't listen or you are deliberately twisting things.  Maybe both.  Reread what I said.  Lay off the beer. 

Artful Dodger: No. your statement was that government is worse than private in fraud and overpricing.

prove it.

*burp*

(V):   We're talking about government insurance.  Stick to the subject. 

Artful Dodger: Sure.. compared to whom? Show me figures that prove corruption in big companies is better than government... don't forget Madoff, the off shore accounts and other known fraud in your compilation

Take your time.. I'm having a cold one.

(V):  The government is a far worse option. 

Artful Dodger: Here we go back into fraud, money, big, bankrupt, blah...

Do you enjoy paying into a scheme that is based on profit? Big, money, fraud, bankrupt, blah.

(V):  You have to look at the long term benefits vrs drawbacks.  Keep what's working, fix only the broken elements of health care.

Nothing the government ever does with regard to social programs works.  They all go bankrupt.  They are a bunch of incompetents.  It will end up costing the US taxpayer far more than most are currently paying.  and it's a fact that anyone can get health care treatment in America regardless of the ability to pay.

Artful Dodger: What is radical about having a competitive health care system with no monopolies? What is conservative values.. you've yet to explain that.. they sure do seem to be different from our Conservative Party.

(V):  I'm not worried.  In one year the Dems will be out of power as they will be a Repub majority.  Obama will have 2 years left of his  lame duck presidency.  He'll never get reelected.  He will lose big time because his ideas are too radical. 

We need fresh blood in congress.  the old guard are out of touch.

Artful Dodger: Awwwwwwwwww don't worry, Fox ads are filling the slots... If you are lucky, maybe you'll get an uninterrupted show.

(V):  You still don't get it.  The way a boycott works is one group complains and the advertisers respond to the complaints.  They are no responding to the show, but to the complainers.  Two can play that game.  Thousands more are boycotting the boycotters.  

The law is on our side:  Our right to boycott. 

http://www.colorofchange.org/beck/

Join the boycott

Artful Dodger: By saying America wasn't ready for a black president.. you kinda imply that people in the USA choose by image rather than who someone is.

YOUR COUNTRY WAS BUILT ON THE RIGHT FOR ANYONE WHO IS OF THE USA TO BE PRESIDENT, no matter sex, colour, race or religion.

OH boy Who is playing the race game here?? I see head games that don't work.

Artful Dodger: And the point is.. you are saying. That a company does not have the right of freedom? That they cannot say when their products are advertised if they find a particular show distasteful?

The law is on their side, the right to choose.

gogul:  Beck rants against the corruption.  He speaks for middle America.   America apparently wasn't ready for a black president.  Seems one cannot criticize a black pres without being labeled a racist.  And it's a fact that Obama's policies will disproportionately favor blacks.   Affirmative action is wrong.  It still discriminates.  A black getting a job over a white because of his blackness is just as wrong as the other way around.  But go after affirmative action and you get labeled a racist. 

I see nowhere in anything Beck has ever said that would constitute hate speech.  That's another one of those tools of the left.  Play the race card or label speech hate.  Silence the opposition at all costs.  Marginalize. 

Beck is right. 

Artful Dodger: To me it doesn't make sense. This is big show and ranting to distract from the amorality of the establishment which Beck is part of. It will take some time to make this comprehend and to awake the will to change it but it will happen. The establishments, no matter if right or left, are robbing us, and Becks behaviour shows that he understands this and is running allready. Nothing can stop the lost of our ugly establishments, not Becks ranting, not Obamas silence about, nothing can stop the obvious :)

(V):  http://defendglenn.com/advertisers.php

Artful Dodger: And? What do you mean by that?

(V):  I will join the the thousands that are boycotting the boycotters

Artful Dodger: So? Is "Nielsen Media Research."??

Btw.. advertisers on this side of the pond do not want their products associated with Beck.

As you said, they are moving their money.

(V):  You are so uninformed.  The Huffington post is A FAR LEFT BLOG!

Interesting tidbit:  Color of Change is behind the boycotts convincing advertisers to pull out of Beck's program.  And who is one of the founders?  Van Jones. 

Perhaps every MSNBC viewer was in the audience for Tuesday's inauguration.

That's probably the most favorable explanation for the cable network's dismal showing in the inauguration ratings, where it came in last among all networks and trailed rivals CNN and Fox News in every daypart.

For the critical hours of 11AM to 2PM, MSNBC averaged just 2.6 million total viewers, 69 percent lower than Fox News (4.4 million) and 165 percent lower than CNN (6.9 million), according to Nielsen Media Research.

For the total day (6AM-3AM), MSNBC averaged 1.7 million total viewers, compared to CNN's 4.0 million and Fox News' 2.5 million. Things weren't any better in the Adults 25-54 demographic, either, where MSNBC usually performs well. CNN won the demo with an average 1.6 million to Fox News' 750,000 and MSNBC's 610,000.


Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/21/msnbc-network-that-opened_n_159860.html

Fox is NUMBER 1!!!   No advertiser is going to go to MSNBC where they will get a few thousand viewers when they can go to any Fox slot they want and get millions of viewers.

It's not accident that Fox is number 1.  People need to get over that fact.  Otherwise cheese will be served with the whine.