jesus god almighty, it gets stupider and bloodier by the day.
here are the two NYT articles referenced in the video:
army doesn’t know hasan’s religion
but he’s not married because he can’t find a woman who keeps all the islamic traditions
and who gives a fuck what his religion is anyway? this wasn’t a holy war — this was a person who didn’t WANT to go to war. but apparently no one was listening.
they’re listening now, though, aren’t they?
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Hartford, Conn., Oct. 24, 2009 (INS). Hartford-American Life Assurance (HALF) today announced a new product whereby American citizens could insure the lives of the unborn. Company spokesperson Camille Frottage told the press that HALF will now insure the life of any fetus whose inception has been verified by a physician against being stillborn. “Those who criticized the insurance industry for securitizing life-insurance policies will be glad to hear about this new visionary plan to securitize life before birth.”
The policy will allow prospective parents to take out a HALF-Life policy for up to nine months before their fetus is born. If the baby is normal for the first four years of its life, the insurer will pay at maturity the face value of the policy, up to $100,000. But should the infant be stillborn or have a congenital defect or develop a condition like low IQ, the insured would forfeit all premiums paid up to the date of diagnosis or the child’s fourth birthday. Premiums start at $1,000 per month, depending on the amount of coverage.
“Buyers of this policy will have extra incentive to get the best prenatal and pediatric care,” Ms. Frottage said. “No one who has paid premiums will wish to forfeit them because of failure to provide the fetus or the new-born with good medical care.”
Critics of the new policy, however, argue that it amounts to placing a bet that a new life will avoid the increasing pitfalls for a healthy birth and early childhood in a society suffering from escalating rates of infant mortality and birth defects. Moreover, said Dr. Stephanie Stethos, chief of pediatrics at Hartford Downtown Hospital, “Big insurers would have an incentive to poison the well of pediatric care in order to assure their wager against a child’s reaching age four.”
Noted medical ethicist Victor Y. Nobel, Ph.D., points out that HALF and other big insurers are bundling these policies together in lots of a thousand and selling them to investors as securities. “These policies are being touted as the next big thing in the securities industry and will soon encourage a bubble that will threaten the economy, not to mention the lives of the very young.” On the other hand, he admitted, medical schools can expect a big run-up in the number of students choosing a specialty in pediatrics. “Naturally, new doctors in our country want to maximize their earning potential,” he explained.
Timothy A. Gartner, the embattled undersecretary of the Treasury, issued the following statement from Washington: “We at Treasury are in no position to quash any new financial instrument that might get our economy back on track. As with all other investment vehicles, our best advice to consumers is simply caveat emptor.”
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a conversation with collin kelley, the (unofficial) gay poet laureate of atlanta.
even though we’re not very angry … at the moment.
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here’s one paragraph from the WBGU special report just released by the German Advisory Council on Global Change:
i don’t see anyone in our government acting quickly on this. do you?
anyone who’s been keeping even an occasional eye on new data coming out — from sources all over the world — about climate change may notice a common theme: everything is happening more quickly than originally predicted (though just about all of the most dire changes predicted ARE, in fact, already well underway).
there have been countless “the end is near!” cartoons. i remember one from the 70’s or 80’s that pictured a naked man wearing only a signboard with that phrase, marching up a busy avenue. i don’t remember the caption now, but it was good enough to keep that image in my head for all these years.
but it’s not funny any more. the truth hurts. and it’s damn near too late to make the necessary changes. even if we didn’t have a government that was unable to rise above partisan squabbling and empty rhetoric, even if we did have a body of astute and nimble leaders able to lead us — COMMAND us — through the sacrifices that MUST be made in order to turn this around, it might be too late. but no. instead we have self-serving institutions such as the farm bureau actively working to defeat a number of climate change bills presently under consideration. you know, because environmental conservancy might impact their bottom line. are you fucking kidding me?
the american government, from the top to the bottom, is little better than the old tammany hall politicans. all sold to the highest bidder. no one looking further than the next election, the next campaign contribution.
as my old dad said to me a few years ago, “where are the statesmen? don’t we have them any more?”
last fall, i thought we had at least one, and i worked harder than i ever had before in order to help barack obama win the election.
not only is he not doing what needs to be done, i don’t see him trying very hard to rally his so-called troops around this issue.
health care? no worries. the whole fucking planet is going down in carbon flames and no insurance policy in the world will be enough to save you.
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first of all, if you haven’t yet seen the new michael moore movie, “Capitalism: A Love Story” go and see it TODAY. and bring all your friends and tell them to bring all of their friends.
i consider myself pretty well-informed about the issues involved in this country’s (most recent) financial meltdown, but i didn’t know the half of it.
as i watched an older couple packing whatever they could fit into their vehicle in the course of being evicted from the land their family had owned for four generations, the fat wife weeping, the white-mustached husband wanting to blow somebody’s head off, i wanted to get up and blow somebody’s head off FOR him. for them, and for the tens of thousands of others who have lost everything because wall street thought that credit default swaps were a good idea. whose head? i had nobody in particular in mind, but if you make a list of every goldman sachs employee (past or present, since half their execs are now running our government) who has ever received a bonus — whether in stock or cash — worth $5 million or more, you’d have some very good candidates.
btw, wall street now wants to do the same thing with life insurance that they did with mortgages: package them and sell them as securities. i guess it’s the last thing left for them to make money on, death, since they’ve already fucked up everything else. as things stand right now, it’s not that far a stretch for me to imagine secret squads of assassins paid to throw people down the stairs or whatever to maximize the profits, keep those old bodies in line with the actuarial predictions. goddamit, how DARE you live to be a hundred, and fuck up all the stats! uh uh, we ain’t having it.
did you know we’ve already handed four trillion tax dollars to wall street. FOUR FUCKING TRILLION. looks like this:
$4,000,000,000,000.00
$4,000,000,000,000.00
$4,000,000,000,000.00
$4,000,000,000,000.00
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Palm Springs, Oct. 2 (INS). PLAYBOY impresario Hugh Hefner has declared his support for David Letterman, the embattled host of The Late Show, who admitted to his national audience last night that he had “bedded” numerous (female) staff members over the years. His use of the word “bedded” shows, according to Hefner, that Letterman is a member of the PLAYBOY generation, men now in their 60’s or older who became addicted to pornography as boys and grew up, so to speak, always regarding any woman in their employ as “beddable.”
“I think Dave is brave for revealing his peccadilloes in the face of an extortion threat. After all, most powerful men of his generation consider bedding ladies at the office part of their job perks. Sometimes, they even marry them,” said Hefner, alluding to both his own predilection for marrying his Bunnies and Letterman’s marriage to a former staffer in March.
“Let’s face it—even in an age of Women’s Lib, most women still go to college for their MRS and wear come-on clothing at work in hope of seducing the boss. It’s only natural,” Hefner said, dodging a rotten tomato thrown by one of the lady reporters at his press conference.
Letty Forbush, spokesperson for NOW, decried Hefner’s male chauvinism and asserted that he and Letterman have “an outdated, predatory, narcissistic view of male-female relationships.” She added, “These boys are no better than Roman Polanski, except that they haven’t yet been outed for having sex with jail bait,” or using drugs as an aid to seduction. “Personally,” Forbush said, “I’d have to be on chloroform to have sex with any of those old duffers.”
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i am on darcy burner’s mailing list because i supported her congressional campaign last year through Act Blue.
she sent a message yesterday containing links to two videos that i don’t think have been widely viewed. they should be.
and here’s my question to MY democratic representatives: why aren’t YOU speaking out the way alan grayson is? why aren’t YOU saying these things, and saying them as strongly?
WHERE ARE THE BALLS OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY? IT’S TIME FOR THEM TO MAKE AN APPEARANCE. THIS IS WHAT BALLS LOOK LIKE:
_______________________________________________________
Rep. Alan Grayson apologizes
Just not to the Republicans
Yesterday, Congressman Alan Grayson (FL-08) got up on the floor of the House and gave a speech in which he described the Republican healthcare plan (accurately) as:
“Don’t get sick. If you do get sick… die quickly.”
The Republicans immediately started whining and calling for an apology because their feelings were hurt. So today Congressman Grayson got up and delivered an apology. I somehow don’t think it was the apology they were expecting.
To quote (the video is a bit hard to hear):
Last night here in this chamber I gave a speech. I’m not going to recount every single thing that I said, but I will point out that immediately after that speech, several Republicans asked me to apologize.
Well, I would like to apologize. I would like to apologize to the dead. And here’s why.
According to this study, “Health Insurance and Mortality in U.S. Adults” which was published two weeks ago, 44,789 Americans die every year because they have no health insurance. That’s right, 44,789 Americans die every year, according to this Harvard study called “Health Insurance and Mortality in U.S. Adults.” You can see it by going to our website, grayson.house.gov.
That is more than ten times the number of Americans who have died in the war in Iraq. It’s more than ten times the number of Americans who died in 9/11. But that was just once: this is every single year.
That’s right: every single year.
Take a look at this. Read it and weep. And I mean that -- read it and weep because of all these Americans who are dying because they don’t have health insurance.
Now I think we should do something about that, and the Democratic healthcare plan does do something about that. It makes healthcare affordable for those who can’t afford insurance, and it saves these peoples’ lives.
Let’s remember that we should care about people even after they’re born.
So I call upon the Democratic members of the House, I call upon the Republican members of the House, I call upon all of us to do our jobs for the sake of America -- for the sake of those dying people and their families.
I apologize to the dead and their families that we haven’t voted sooner to end this holocaust in America.
So here’s the thing: they’re going to come after Alan Grayson. Hard.
So if you want members of Congress who will speak truth to power, please help get his back: http://www.actblue.com/page/graysonapology
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apparently, not everyone is willing to drink the kool-aid, and Republicans for Universal Single-Payer Healthcare proves it.
check them out and support them if you can.
do you know of any other organizations like this one? if so, please drop me a note. and please drop THEM a note — of thanks.
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yes, it has been quiet around here lately, hasn’t it?
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Washington (INS). In an exclusive INS interview President Obama explained his strategy on health-care reform as indebted to the boxer Mohammed Ali, an early boyhood hero. “My debt to Ali is threefold,” said the President. “First I took an Arabic middle name, Hussein. Second, I use the rope-a-dope. And third, I float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.”
For the first time Mr. Obama revealed that his middle name was not given by his parents but self-selected when the former Cassius Clay took the name Mohammed Ali. “If I’d been old enough, I’d probably have been the minister of education for the Black Panthers,” said the President.
As for the rope-a-dope, Ali’s strategy of leaning on the ropes and dodging an opponent’s punches till he tired, dropped his arms, and offered a KO target, Mr. Obama said he’s just leaning on the ropes while Republicans like Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) and Blue Dog Democrats like Rahm Emanuel flail around trying to knock down a public option for health-care reform. “As soon as those dudes run out of gas, pow!—right in the kisser! They go down for the count and I pass my reform bill.”
Likewise, Mr. Obama says, he is floating like a butterfly above the partisan battle over reform. But as soon as he has distracted them with his beauty, “Zap!—I’ll sting them like a bee and send them howling to jump into the Potomac, and I can pass the rest of my agenda.”
Asked about other role models, the President said that he admired the cool wardrobe of hoopster Walt Frazier. “But you know Michelle—she wants me to look like the fools she went to college with at Princeton, so I wear all these dark suits and rep neckties. But after I’m out of office, watch out, Clyde!”
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