Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Senate offers single-payer national healthcare plan



Finally, we’re getting a real healthcare reform bill from the Senate Health, Education, Labor Committee, that, on paper at least, offers a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090702/ap_on_go_co/us_health_care_overhaul_4"real national healthcare with a single-payer option/a; in addition to the single-payer option, the estimated 97 percent coverage is close enough to a cigar to legitimately say this is national healthcare.br /br /I don’t know if the $750/employee fee on companies who don’t cover their employees is high enough, but, it’s a definite start, and certainly in the neighborhood.br /br /iAnd, for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which puts private insurance on a godlike pedestal, there you go — avoid the penalty AND avoid your employees signing up for government health insurance by covering them./ibr /br /Now, the other question is, does the bill set minimum standards of coverage for private-sector plans? Otherwise, a business could offer “insurance” with a $5,000 annual deductible and only 50 percent copay up to, say $25,000.div class="blogger-post-footer"There is no god and I am his prophet.img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7532871-781582701609632171?l=socraticgadfly.blogspot.com'//div

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Mrs. Slocum has died.



object width="500" height="405"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/0_mcTcWlX3Iamp;hl=enamp;fs=1amp;rel=0amp;color1=0x234900amp;color2=0x4e9e00amp;border=1"/paramparam name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/paramparam name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"/paramembed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/0_mcTcWlX3Iamp;hl=enamp;fs=1amp;rel=0amp;color1=0x234900amp;color2=0x4e9e00amp;border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="500" height="405"/embed/objectbr /br /Mollie Sugden, the British actress has died at the age of 86. She will always be remembered as Mrs. Slocum in span style="font-style: italic;"Are You Being Served?/spandiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/23782041-416152526281802663?l=freestudents.blogspot.com'//div

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SC GOP chair says time for Sanford to quit



a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTuNiKBMnKwlPzwyiGjTVbMvbvRmbVoYUbmcI5tnqfJ7eiIE9Ee2Q0U5INBZXtRVEn7Xc_VBrY4hxkXa-oG7CJZBp2i6PHhyJ_co_CuOoCANYyeAm8WjlZdm6yaFr1IgtjZovj30SbsjaM/s1600-h/PantsDownHalfStaffClipping2.gif"img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 214px; height: 388px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTuNiKBMnKwlPzwyiGjTVbMvbvRmbVoYUbmcI5tnqfJ7eiIE9Ee2Q0U5INBZXtRVEn7Xc_VBrY4hxkXa-oG7CJZBp2i6PHhyJ_co_CuOoCANYyeAm8WjlZdm6yaFr1IgtjZovj30SbsjaM/s400/PantsDownHalfStaffClipping2.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351006616023993010" /South Carolina Republican Party Chairwoman Karen Floyd has a href="http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/07/01/sanford/"added her name/a to the swelling chorus of calls for Gov. Mark Sanford to resign.
br /blockquote“For the past two days, I have been speaking with Republican leaders across South Carolina,” she said in a statement. “There is clearly a growing view that the time may have come for Governor Sanford to remove himself and his family from the limelight, so that he can devote his efforts full-time to repairing the damage in his personal life.”/blockquote
br /
br /Also in that swelling chorus? a href="http://www.thestate.com/sanford/story/847926.html"Sen. Jim DeMint/a.
br /
br /Meanwhile, Josh Marshall a href="http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/07/just_go_be_with_her.php"notes/a that the gov appears to be trying to force his wife to divorce him, so he can go with the flame called Maria, instead of him having to be even more of the bad guy.
br /
br /So, I disagree with the SC GOP. Let Marky Mark stay for a while. Maybe he will name names on these other women with whom he has “crossed lines.” Or maybe he’ll do the political equivalent of going postal and start spilling the beans on others. Or maybe he’ll tell us about other lines he crossed. (Check those bathroom stalls at Atlanta Hartsfield!)
br /
br /Do the really right thing, Gov. Stay in office and continue to entertain us.
br /
br /div class="blogger-post-footer"There is no god and I am his prophet.img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7532871-5775936068602497813?l=socraticgadfly.blogspot.com'//div

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Whose a clown for a living – Franken or Imhofe?



Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe, Mr. Anti-Science himself, in claiming the Waxman-Markey bill wouldn’t get more than 35 votes in the Senate, a href="http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=298articleid=20090630_298_0_WASHIN285450"called Al Franken a clown/a, then justified it by saying that’s what he did for a living.div class="blogger-post-footer"There is no god and I am his prophet.img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7532871-1924314561834369116?l=socraticgadfly.blogspot.com'//div

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More on Fort Worth PD anti-gay thuggery



Was it just a routine check for intoxicated patrons at Fort Worth’s Rainbow Lounge last week, or was it possibly homophobic cops “ a href="http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/dws/wfaa/latestnews/stories/wfaa090629_mo_raid.1e30e494.html"loaded for bear/a,” as one patron there claims?br /br /If witness allegations that cops walked in with hands full of plastic handcuffs, well, then the latter is true.br /br /As for Chad Gibson, still hospitalized with a href="http://www.dallasvoice.com/instant-tea/2009/06/30/update-on-chad-gibson/"traumatic brain injury/a, patron cellphone photos show him on the floor of the bar, with a dent in the wall just above his head, while Fort Worth cops are disgusting enough to claim Ihe fell down outside and hit his own head on the sidewalk because he was drunk./Ibr /br /Beyond that, if Gibson assaulted an officer or officers, why has he not been charged?br /br /FWPD Chief Jeff Halstead now claims that patrons made advances at his officers. Right. Forty years after Stonewall, I doubt most drunken gay bar patrons, unless incredibly sloshed, would be close to that dumb.br /br /Want to contact somebody? You can find e-mails for all Fort Worth City Council members a href="http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2009/06/30/fort-worth-police-chief-that-faggot-had-it-coming"here/a.br /br /Here's what I sent to Mayor Mike Moncrief:br /blockquoteFirst, it's appalling from a PR standpoint, if nothing else, that you have yet to publicly comment on this issue. It's appalling beyond bad PR, though.br /br /Second, why aren't officers involved with the Rainbow incident all on suspension? Chad Gibson may die as a result, and a REAL internal investigation would start by suspending officers, I would think.br /br /Third, why are FWPD stories inconsistent with patrons, about where Gibson fell and suffered his head injury, who he fell, and more?br /br /Fourth, if Gibson assaulted officers, why has he not been charged? (And, don't tell me police departments don't issue criminal charges against people in hospitals.)/blockquotebr /Don't be quiet!div class="blogger-post-footer"There is no god and I am his prophet.img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7532871-5515447304883911903?l=socraticgadfly.blogspot.com'//div

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TWiB! Season 2 Ep#2 - BET doesn't Care About Black People



object width="560" height="340"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/w_fHqx8gskkhl=enfs=1"/paramparam name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/paramparam name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"/paramembed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/w_fHqx8gskkhl=enfs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"/embed/objectdiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/21083673-8270371168460397102?l=mirroronamerica.blogspot.com'//div

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National Express won't be the last rail company to throw in the towel



a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWKMqpzd_4NcqXYpKcskDw91lF90T46e_weMLK3PKJlevLPROm4rA_qd4CMwKZ0T9d0nB5Epg5o9XmGOygxHhAguvZv50WtysD0ratY22mH9oRuMV7L56objGtyN_j-2EO5TZUAaxpo_Da/s1600-h/nationalexpress.jpg"img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5353624724490910226" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 319px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 131px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWKMqpzd_4NcqXYpKcskDw91lF90T46e_weMLK3PKJlevLPROm4rA_qd4CMwKZ0T9d0nB5Epg5o9XmGOygxHhAguvZv50WtysD0ratY22mH9oRuMV7L56objGtyN_j-2EO5TZUAaxpo_Da/s320/nationalexpress.jpg" border="0" //aIt is no great surprise to see a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jul/01/national-express-london-to-edinburgh"National Express/a handing back the East Coast Main Line franchise.br /br /British railway companies stopped making profits around 1914, yet they were supposed to raise enough from the line to satisfy their shareholders and pay £1.4bn to the government over the next seven-and-a-half years.br /br /I doubt that National Express will be the last company to find there is no future in the privatised railway business.br /br /It is not as if the private railway feels more free. Quite the reverse.br /br /Ever since privatisation railway stations have been festooned with notices warning the companies' customers about their behaviour and threatening them with all sorts of penalties and reprisals if they think they can pay for the company's services on the train.br /br /This is partly the result of giving a private company an effective monopoly and partly because those companies are desperate to raise money to pay the government and their shareholders.br /br /Then this position is overlaid with New Labour's target culture. Never mind if you give your customers a good service, just make sure you meet the centrally decided target.br /br /Which is why this evening it was announced at Leicester that the train I was waiting for would not call at Market Harborough, as advertised, but run not-stop to St Pancras instead. Sod the customers. Just make sure you meet the government target.br /br /All of which explains why the privatised railway has taken far more public money than British Rail ever did, yet has in many ways less concern for its passengers than the nationalised railway did.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6606798-7219836707103543155?l=liberalengland.blogspot.com'//div

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