Artful Dodger: Yes, it is renewal time for my "group" insurance plan at work. It is going up 89%!! The agent has done a search for other companies, and they have all gone up significantly as well. When I asked why, I was told it's "in preparation of health care reform". She said we are lucky, the companies that are renewing after Sept 23 will have even higher increases.

We are a very small company. We don't know what we are going to do. They may eliminate my health insurance.

Yeah, thanks Obama

Übergeek 바둑이: They ought to watch this...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2023790698427111488#docid=2864871032688882557

It's called "The War Game" made in 1965.

Ferris Bueller: it is 404 error...

I have just finished relocating my home office into a new room that I have had built onto my house. I found the cutting from a newspaper of 2001.

America's Ugly Side</b>

The SBS program The Cutting Edge showed a 2001 speech by a British MP: "Since 1945, the Americans have bombed China, Korea, Quatemala, Indonesia,Cuba, The Congo, Peru, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Guatemala, Grenada, Libya, El Salvador, Panama, Iraq, Sudan, Somalia, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia. How humanitarian can you get?" Why, then, do Americans wonder why they are hated?
(signed) H Beneke,
Gatton.


Would Jules know which polly it was?

While campaigning in Nevada Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told an audience of mostly Hispanic voters: "I don't know how anyone of Hispanic heritage could be a Republican, okay. Do I need to say more?"

Individual insurance costs will go up. This means those like me, that pay for parts of their health coverage, will now pay more.

PLUS

Middle income earners will have a couple of thousand dollar tax liability.

That's a double whammy.

Obama care was sold that it would REDUCE insurance costs. Not so. They have gone up...way up.

nice

Tuesday: Hillary (or anyone else) should take Barack's place for reelection.

Most people out there are really ignorant when it comes to nuclear weapons.

Those who oppose them think that governments are willing to just give up their stockpiles and that somehow those in power will give up nuclear wapons out of the goodnes of their hearts.

Those who want to keep nuclear weapons (like Sarah Palin and other of similar right wing tendencies) are thinking that if you keep the wapons, nobody will ever attack you out of fear. The so called MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) principle.

Out there there are only 7 countries with the so called hydrogen bombs (two-stage thermonuclear devices). To put it into perspective, we must realize that WW II saw the deployment of an equivalent of 2 megatons of TNT by all parties involved. In other words, the equivalent of 2,000,000 tons of TNT were detonated by all countires involved in the war.

The first country to develop a thermonuclear device was the US, which developed the Ullam-Teller design (H Bomb) in 1951. The ultimate capability of that bomb was 25 megatons, the equivalent of an explosion of 25,000,000 tons of TNT. Now think about this, a single bomb detonated with the power of 12.5 times all the explosives used in WW II.

Then the Soviet Union followed in 1957 with what is called Sakharov's Third Way (apparently similar to the Ullam Teller design of the US). In 1961 the Soviet Union detonated the largest bomb in history. The Tsar Bomba had a yield of 50 megatons. Originally it had been designed as a 100 megaton bomb, but they decided to cut the yiel in half at the last minute. A single bomb could explode with 25 (and potentially 50) times the amount of all explosives used in WW II.

Later the UK developed its Granite series of bombs in 1957 and ultimately achived explosions of 3 megatons.

The People's Republic of China detonated its H bomb in 1967 and achieved yeilds of 3.3 megatons.

France followed in 1968 with Canopus bomb and achieved 2.1 megatons.

Israel is believed to have H boms, but they have never detonated or tested any nuclear weapons (obviously the reduced land area of Israel makes it unsafe to test any devices. It is bleived that Israel had nuclear devices as early as 1961 since Stanislaw Ulam probably passed his design onto Israel from very early on.

India detonated an H bomb in 1998, but achieved only about 50 kilotons of yield.

Thus we can see that there are only 5 countries with H bombs that yield in the megaton range. While schematics of H bombs are well known, details of their design are the most closely guarded secrets in the world, and they should be because in reality nuclear weapons are not as complex as people think. It is the purification of the fissile material that is difficult, and Pakistan's developments in that area and how Pakistan has sold that information means that nuclear weapons are now easier to make than ever.

Other countries have nuclear weapons of the type called "uranium" and "plutonium" type. Pakistan has detonated nuclear weapons and is still increasing its stockpile. North Korea is a recent addition to the nuclear club, but compared to other countries their techonology is primitive.

South Africa had nuclear weapons in the 1980s but apparently dismantled them and its nuclear programs in the 1990s. Most countries in NATO share nuclear weapons and are technologically advanced enough to develop them on their own, as are most countries that were part of the Soviet Union. Belarus, Kazkhstand and the Ukraine inherited thousands of missiles from the Soviet Union but they got rid of them and returned them to Russia or destroyed them.

In other places countries like Brazil, Argentina, Japan, Australia, Taiwan, Albania, Algeria, Syria, and a few others have the technical know-how but refuse to pursue nuclear weapons, at least openly! The US is on Iran's case about it, although the motivivations there are more political since Pakistan is 1000 times the threat that Iran is, but then Pakistan is an "ally" of the US.

In my opinion, in the next 30 years we will see at least 10 other countires detonate nuclear weapons and there is nothing the US or Russia can do about it.

The US insisted in pursuing the arms race during the Cold War (of course, the Soviet Union was happy to follow along). Now the US has the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction and it has become impossible for the US to feel safe without them. People like Sarah Palin play on that fear because when the bombs drop, they are not the ones who will do the dying. The likes of Sarah Palin will safely stash themselves away in underground bunkers while the rest of the world dies. I wonder if these people ever saw Dr. Strangelove.

Tuesday: Cute does not cut it when coming to nuclear weapons. Obama is right to think that taking advice from the Secretary of Defence and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is going to give him a more informed decision then listening to Sarah Palin.

Palin, the former vice presidential candidate, has not been shy about criticizing Obama's policies and this week weighed in on his revamped nuclear strategy, saying it was like a child in a playground who says 'punch me in the face, I'm not going to retaliate.'

"I really have no response to that. The last I checked, Sarah Palin is not much of an expert on nuclear issues," Obama said in an interview with ABC News.

true.. nuking someone is not like a playground fight. Anyone who thinks it is ought to visit and talk to the people of Hiroshima who recently marked the 60th anniversary of the death of over 100,000 people by one 20 kiloton atomic bomb. Now we have megaton+ hydrogen bombs.

Mr Reagan gave the impression of knowing little of what was going on. The Tower Commission report on the scandal absolved him from deliberately lying to the American people but criticised him for being out of touch.

Later the final Congressional report laid the blame squarely on the president. It declared: "If the president did not know what his national security advisers were doing, he should have."
The report was seen as a devastating indictment of Mr Reagan's style of government.

Mr Reagan's eight years in office spanned triumphs and disasters. He left office with a budget deficit larger than the combined total of all of his 39 predecessors.

The correctional response to HIV and other infectious diseases has improved over time. During the early years of the HIV epidemic, correctional systems were far more likely to impose mandatory HIV testing of inmates and to segregate inmates who had HIV.38 Currently, about 18 state prison systems, but no large city/county jail systems, make testing of inmates mandatory, and only 2 state systems still segregate inmates who have HIV.39 Before the advent of effective antiretroviral treatment, mandatory HIV testing and segregation were adopted primarily to prevent HIV transmission, although there were serious shortcomings in this regard, including the harmful effects of stigma, discrimination, and mistreatment.

Today, mandatory testing is usually justified as a means of identifying inmates who need HIV treatment. This is the basis of a routine testing policy in Rhode Island, where few inmates refuse the testing.40 Braithwaite and Arriola argued for mandatory HIV testing as a way of overcoming racist withholding of medical care from inmate populations dominated by Blacks and Hispanics.41 Nevertheless, the ethical problems and potential detriments of mandatory testing seem to outweigh the advantages. As articulated in the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines and elsewhere, correctional practices should reflect as much as possible those followed in the general community.42,43 People in the general community are not subjected to mandatory testing, and inmates should have the right to make their own informed choices. Creating a distinction on the basis of being incarcerated further stigmatizes inmates and undermines the important principle that correctional facilities are in fact part of the general community.

Within correctional facilities, the best policy is to offer and make readily available voluntary counseling and testing, with assurances that the results will remain confidential. Additionally, voluntary counseling and testing should be “marketed” to encourage people who have risk factors to take advantage of the service. However, uptake of voluntary counseling and testing may be a challenge because of concerns about confidentiality and discrimination44 and administrative and staffing problems.45
All testing and diagnostic programs for HIV, hepatitis, and STDs should result in appropriate treatment.36,46–49 State-of-the-art treatment for inmates is available in some US jurisdictions and in some other countries. However, despite the progress that has occurred, there is substantial room for improvement. In 2005, the New York Times documented very serious abuses in facilities where the for-profit organization Prison Health Services had contracts.50 This finding has renewed calls for correctional health services to be placed under the control of public health departments. Many factors beyond fiscal resources and the moral commitment of correctional departments (or lack thereof) influence treatment, including the quality and training of staff and restrictions on activities imposed by the correctional environment itself.

Theodore M. Hammett, PhD
Theodore M. Hammett is with Abt Associates Inc, Cambridge, Mass.
Requests for reprints should be sent to Theodore M. Hammett, PhD, Abt Associates Inc, 55 Wheeler St, Cambridge, MA 02138–1168 (email: ted_hammett@abtassoc.com).
Accepted July 21, 2005.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1470637/

Bwild: Yes he did as did many now recognised big names (or in a single store)... but the tech and resources needed to set up a modern car plant is more than a few bucks. As for the exec's... standard. I still remember the CEO of one company I worked for and the extras the company was paying for.. nice life is all I say.. plush car, plane. Yet the company was living on loans which when we had the 80's crash caused severe financial difficulties.

Without a handout.. the unemployment levels through direct and indirect redundancies would have gone up by how much?

As for donations.. no campaign can afford to run without donations, especially in the USA as much of the campaigning I hear is TV based. Here in the UK that is not allowed. We have a system where parties can make a limited number of election broadcasts.

Two unpleasant topics of conversation most of us avoid are the epidemic of HIV/AIDS among prison inmates and a variety of sometimes violent events resulting in transmission of the disease. Some states long ago implemented policies to protect the uninfected part of the prison population while providing exceptional medical treatment and counseling to the infected population.

In South Carolina, it has worked so well since 1998 that there has only been a single transmission of HIV/AIDS to a noninfected prisoner. All that may change, however, thanks to a threat from Eric Holder's Justice Department.

South Carolina received a letter from the now-infamous Civil Rights Division that the policy of keeping infected inmates at a designated facility, instead of scattered across the state in the general prison population, may unfairly stigmatize infected prisoners. To the Obama political appointees in the Civil Rights Division, this constitutes discrimination under the Americans With Disabilities Act.

Tuesday: whaaaaa - that's all the Dems have. Play the sympathy card. Ok, help with 911 services but forget the teacher's union. Nuts to them.

Tuesday: No more emergency aid. What? Are we crazy? We are OUT of money. States spend foolishly and now they need help? NO NO NO! Enough is enough.

(V):the green party would do away with lobbiest...the auto industry's bail out was a farse(as anyone watching the hearings could see,ie:chief executives arriving in plush private jets) without a hand-out...they would all have figured something out. henry ford started in his barn.
how much money in contributions did the big 3 send to the yomama camp? could the democrats ever win without the support of the unions?

Bwild: I think under the neo-cons it'd be worse.. they'd let the car industry go under for a start. And you don't suddenly pull out of a major economic collapse in an instant. It (as anyone who's studied to any degree of economic history) takes time.

Unemployment has gone up in ALL of the western world. Just because it's happening in the USA does not make you guys special and immune to the current global economic crises.

Tuesday:

Tuesday: I'll wait.

Tuesday: you're dodging the question. answer it. It's NOT a matter of opinion that a human being dies in EVERY abortion. The death rate is 100% for all practical purposes.

Tuesday: And how do you justify supporting a man who favors the butchering of the unborn?

Tuesday: Then why extend them at taxpayer's expense when there is NO MONEY TO PAY FOR IT???

Tuesday: More nonsense. Using your exact argument, unemployment is "supposed to be a temporary help not a lifetime crutch."

Tuesday: More nonsense. Using your exact argument, unemployment is "supposed to be a temporary help not a lifetime crutch."

Tuesday: Those cuts will affect families with small helpless children. You know that. Thousands will be affected.

Tuesday: So you favor taking food stamps away from families with hungry children? hmmmm