Grappling With The Age Of ‘Tough Oil’
No matter which side of the oil argument you are on I don’t think you can argue with this writers premiss. The age of “easy oil” is over and all that’s left is “tough oil” and these oil messes will only become worse as we go after oil in risker environments.
If you have time listen to 27 minute interview. It’s very thought provoking.
Here is the full article: Michael Klare: Grappling With The Age Of ‘Tough Oil’
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128212150
The Gulf Oil Spill Pisses Me Off!
There are many, many things I would like to say about the oil spill – they have run through my head over and over – but sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. And this is definitely one of those times!
I’ve been in Florida for most of my life and consider myself a Floridian at this point. My husband (Swampdawg) knows how much this disaster has troubled not just myself but my grown kids, too.
He put this video together for me, but I wanted to share it with you because it is so poignant and close to my heart! Hope you enjoy it but also hope that it makes you stop to think, as well!
I know most people see disasters on TV….NOLA during hurricane season, the south flooding in the spring, tornado’s in midwest…..and I think most see it, then forget it, because it’s “not in their backyard”.
Well this is in my backyard and it PISSES ME OFF!
CLICK HERE TO SEE MY YOUTUBE VIDEO ABOUT THE OIL SPILL!
Kristine Cumz
Arizona: The Meth Lab of Democracy?
Is Arizona the meth lab of democracy?
Jon Stewart’s take on the new Arizona Immigration Law.
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Jon Stewart Makes Fun of Glenn Beck
Last nights The Daily Show with Jon Stewart does a 10 minute skit on how Glenn Beck’s portrayal of Progressivism is cancer. It’s fucking hilarious and shows how insane Glenn Beck is.
Take the time to watch it’s brilliant!
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Intro – Progressivism Is Cancer | ||||
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| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
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Atheist group exchanges porn for religion
Atheist group exchanges porn material for religious texts. (Good for them! I am tired of people knocking on my door trying to shove religion down my throat. Why shouldn’t I be able to shove porn down theirs LOL) To read the full article: http://www.xbiz.com/news/118162
I personally love the last line… University officials state they are in their legal rights
Net neutrality rules face mounting GOP opposition
Repost of Article from USA Today: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2009-10-05-net-neutrality_N.htm
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican opposition is mounting as federal regulators prepare to vote this month on so-called “network neutrality” rules, which would prohibit broadband providers from favoring or discriminating against certain types of Internet traffic flowing over their lines.
Twenty House Republicans — including most of the Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee — sent a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski on Monday urging him to delay the Oct. 22 vote on his net neutrality plan.
Genachowski, one of three Democrats on the five-member commission, wants to impose rules to ensure that broadband providers don’t abuse their power over Internet access to favor their own services or harm competitors.
Democrats say the rules will keep phone companies from discriminating against Internet calling services and stop cable TV providers from hindering online video applications.
But in a letter to Genachowski on Monday, Rep. Cliff Stearns of Florida, the top Republican on the Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet, and his colleagues warned that new net neutrality regulations could discourage broadband providers from investing in their networks. The letter said that if Internet service providers can’t manage traffic on their networks to ensure efficient service, consumers could suffer.
The Republicans are calling on Genachowski to conduct a “thorough market analysis” to determine whether new regulations are necessary.
Their points echoed those made in a letter that House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio and House Republican Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia sent to President Barack Obama on Friday.
Genachowski’s office had no comment on the letters.
Meanwhile in the Senate, the top Republican on the Commerce Committee, Kay Bailey Hutchinson of Texas, is considering legislation that would prohibit the FCC from developing net neutrality rules.
Genachowski’s proposal calls for the FCC to formally adopt four existing principles that have guided the agency’s enforcement of communications laws since 2005. Those principles state that network operators must allow subscribers to access all legal online content, applications, services and devices.
Genachowski is also calling for the FCC to adopt two additional principles that would prevent broadband providers from discriminating against particular content or applications and would require them to be open about their network management practices. And he is calling for the agency to apply these rules across different types of broadband networks, including wireless networks.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Slamming the Bank of America. Finally!
DEBTORS REVOLT BEGINS NOW!- Now I am one that believes individuals are responsible for their debts. However, in the light of the current banking mess this woman has a good point. And for god’s sake … 30% interest. She should revolt!
Jon Stewart -vs- Betsy McCaughey
This is BRILLIANT it’s funny what happens to the politicians when the get grilled by someone outside Washington that will not let them stick to their talking points. It’s all about the supposed “Death Panels”
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Exclusive – Betsy McCaughey Extended Interview Pt. 1 | ||||
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| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Exclusive – Betsy McCaughey Extended Interview Pt. 2 | ||||
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The Most Outrageous U.S. Lies About Global Healthcare
Note: This is NOT my article it re-published here and it is orginally published by Foriegn Policy Magazine – CLICK HERE FOR THE ORIGINAL SOURCE & Thanks to Alexandra on Dreamnet for pointing this article out to me!
As the U.S. Congress this summer holds its first serious health-care reform debate since the Clinton era, the resulting public furor has featured increasingly overheated claims about everything from so-called “death panels” to the supposed prowess of America’s homegrown medicine. Many of the most wildly inaccurate statements have been directed abroad — sometimes at the United States’ closest allies, such as Britain and Canada, and often at the best health-care systems in the world.
BY ANNIE LOWREY, MICHAEL WILKERSON | AUGUST 18, 2009
NO HEALTH CARE FOR HAWKING OR KENNEDY
The lie: Stephen Hawking (who has Lou Gehrig’s disease) and U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy (who has brain cancer) would not receive treatment in Britain, which has a government-run health-care system.
The liars: An editorial in Investor’s Business Daily on July 31 claimed: “People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service [NHS] would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.”
U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa — the senior-most Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, which must approve health-care bills — said Aug. 5 during a radio interview with Iowa City’s KCJJ, “Ted Kennedy — with a brain tumor, being 77 years old as opposed to being 37 years old — if he were in England, would not be treated for his disease because … when you get to be 77, your life is considered less valuable under those systems.”
The debunking: In both cases, this is nonsense.
Hawking, who is British, receives intensive treatment for his degenerative motor neuron disease at a local Cambridge hospital. Upon hearing the rumors of his non-treatment, the prizewinning theoretical physicist told The Guardian, “I wouldn’t be here today if it were not for the NHS. I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived.”
In Kennedy’s case, it is true that Britain assesses the cost-effectiveness of procedures and medicines before deciding whether to prescribe them. And the NHS does deny some procedures and drugs based on considerations such as the severity of a patient’s sickness, the cost of treatment, and the quality of life afforded. But doctors and NHS officials have stressed that Britons with Kennedy’s condition, regardless of age, would receive aggressive treatment, including surgery, radiation therapy, and chemotherapy.
The chief executive of Britain’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), which determines the rationing system, told The Guardian, “It is neither true nor is it anything you could extrapolate from anything we’ve ever recommended” that Kennedy would be denied treatment by the NHS.
Thus far, neither Kennedy nor Grassley have commented since Grassley’s initial remark.
CANADIANS HEAD TO THE UNITED STATES FOR URGENT CARE
The lie: Canada’s government-run health care is so bad that needy patients need to pay for care in the United States.
The liars: The advocacy group Patients United Now is running a television ad featuring Ontario resident Shona Holmes, who claims, “I survived a brain tumor, but if I had relied on my government health care, I’d be dead.” She says she traveled to the United States for lifesaving treatment.
In June, Sen. Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said, “For cardiac bypass surgery, patients in Ontario are told they may have to wait six months for a surgery that Americans can often get right away.”
The debunking: Holmes did indeed pay $100,000 for care she received from Minnesota’s famed Mayo Clinic, considered one of the best medical centers in the world.
But Holmes’ treatment was not a lifesaving anti-cancer measure. The Mayo Clinic’s own Web site explains that she had a cyst — not a brain tumor — which was not necessarily life-threatening. (It also explains that Mayo is a nonprofit cooperative and strongly supports health-care reform.)
In general, Canadians are not flocking south for health care, and for good reason. According to a report from the Fraser Institute, a prominent Canadian think tank, both the Canadian and U.S. governments spend about 7 percent of their GDPs on health-care costs. (The United States, including private expenditure, spends about 16 percent of GDP on health care.) But all Canadians are covered for all medical care, plus some prescription drug costs. In the United States, 47 million are uninsured, and hundreds of thousands declare bankruptcy every year due to medical bills.
There are wait times in Canada, but nobody waits for emergency surgery; McConnell’s claim about bypass patients is untrue. In 2007, a non-emergency patient in Ontario waited about 61 days for elective bypass surgery, according to Canada’s health service. Such collected data is not made public in the United States.
HEALTH CARE IN EUROPE ONLY WORKS BECAUSE OF SINGLE-PAYER
The lie: European countries all have long-standing single-payer systems — which is why their health-care systems work.
The liar: Howard Dean, the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, recently said, “The Europeans all have single-payer [systems] because essentially their health-care systems were destroyed during World War II. And they went to a single payer … and then it turned out they loved it and didn’t want to get away from it afterwards.”
The debunking: This is an overgeneralization.
Europe has a broad range of health-care systems and health insurance plans; not all European countries are single-payer. It’s an amorphous term, but usually denotes a system in which the government pays the medical bills, but doctors and hospitals are private, such as in Canada, France, and Germany. (In socialized systems, such as Britain’s NHS or the U.S. Veterans Affairs Department, the government pays the doctors and owns the hospitals.)
Rather than a single post-World War II wave of health-care reform, numerous European countries have experimented to find systems that work. For instance, both Switzerland (in 1994) and the Netherlands (in 2006) moved to models the United States is now considering. Hospitals, doctors, and insurers are for-profit and private. But the systems are highly regulated, and insurance is mandatory and government-subsidized.
CANADA AND BRITAIN MAKE YOUR HEALTH CARE CHOICES FOR YOU
The lie: In Canada and Britain, individuals lose the right to make their own health-care choices.
The liars: The advocacy group Club for Growth and the Republican National Committee (RNC)
The debunking: Both the RNC and the conservative Club for Growth have warned that a government takeover of health care would put a bureaucrat in between patient and doctor — as in Britain and Canada.
The latter group’s ad ominously announces: “$22,750. In England, government officials decided that’s how much six months of life is worth. Under their socialized system, if a medical treatment costs more, you’re out of luck.”
This is not true. Patients in Canada and Britain retain autonomy to help decide upon their courses of treatment and to choose their own doctors.
In England, the $22,750 figure represents not what “six months of life is worth,” but the price at which the NICE determines a single drug is not cost-effective. Exceptions to the ceiling are permitted in some cases; and Britons retain the option to pay for private care. (In which case, rationing occurs as it does in the United States: Those with ability to pay do so.) The system is designed to prevent one of the key reasons for high health costs in the United States: With limited medical knowledge, patients assume the most expensive option is the best.
A NICE representative told The Guardian the ad is “a gross misrepresentation of how [the agency] applies health economics to try and address the central issue: how to allocate health care rationally within the context of limited health-care resources.”
THE UNITED STATES HAS THE BEST HEALTH CARE IN THE WORLD
The lie: The United States has the best health care in the world.
The liars: A slew of U.S. presidents, politicians, journalists, commentators, and everyday citizens
The debunking: There is one yardstick by which U.S. health care distinguishes itself: cost. The United States spends more — in total dollars, percentage of GDP, and per capita — than every other country on Earth.
On virtually every other broad metric, the claim that U.S. health care stands for global excellence is demonstrably false. The United States doesn’t take a top spot in either the World Health Organization or nonpartisan Commonwealth Fund rankings. The American health-care system is not best in terms of coverage, access, patient safety, efficiency, or cost-effectiveness. It does not produce the best outcomes for diseases such as cancer, heart disease, or diabetes; for the elderly, the middle-aged, or the young; or in terms of life expectancy, rates of chronic diseases, or obesity.
Which countries do come out on top? Often — France, Switzerland, Britain, Canada, and Japan. On the World Health Organization’s list, the United States comes out 37th.
Save over 50% when you subscribe to FP.
Annie Lowrey is an assistant editor of Foreign Policy. Michael Wilkerson is a researcher at Foreign Policy.
Note: This is NOT my article it re-published here and it is orginally published by Foriegn Policy Magazine – CLICK HERE FOR THE ORIGINAL SOURCE
Speaker Of The House
Dr. Timothy McCarthy while receiving a medical award for creativity, reported his findings to The American Society of Plastic Surgeons, concluding with this case study:
“Several years ago a woman was high on cocaine and marijuana and she rode a horse head-on into a train traveling 80 miles an hour. All I had left to work with was the woman’s hair and the horse’s ass. I was able to put them together and today she’s Speaker of the House.”
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