Umm, is there something they’re not telling us?

Old underground burial chambers in a Devon city could be used to store the bodies of swine flu victims if the outbreak worsens, a council has said.

the full story..

and from today on our side of the pond..

Military planning for

possible H1N1 outbreak

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The U.S. military wants to establish regional teams of military personnel to assist civilian authorities in the event of a significant outbreak of the H1N1 virus this fall, according to Defense Department officials.

The full story..

Just what the hell is going on here?

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After visiting Howie in what I thought would be a discussion on hot boys and massage oil… I am almost too pissed to speak.. Video’s from Howie’s Updated post on Pfc Bowe Bergdahl have me blinded by rage at the moment.

No one in the military is defending this guy?  This guy who wears an American soldiers uniform, who fought in a war for America.. who is a fucking American for God’s sake.. and No one in the military is defending him? While Fox News is having the guest ask the Taliban to take care of our problems for us to save us money?

This jerk-off says that in a warzone, at night any solider is aware of where his buddy’s are? And that proves this private was a liar?  Why doesn’t this shameful shell of a wannabe war commander ask Pat Tillman about how a soldier always knows where his buddies are in a warzone at night- oops, I guess we can’t ask Pat Tillman since he was killed by his buddies in at night, in a warzone.

Who does this fucking asshole think he is doing besmirching  any service-member on the news and calling for his death by terrorists to save us money? And what the fuck is Fox news doing reporting it not just once, and I’ll give the 1st interviewer some credit for being shocked and not wanting to jump to any of this scum bag’s propaganda.. but what are they doing by having the asshat on again and agreeing with him

This is the way we support our troops? This is the American standard here? Bill O’Reilly should be shamed and shunned ala Jane Fonda.

How can anybody out there, whether the circumstance surrounding his capture are true or not, how can anybody look in the camera and devalue an American solider.. fuck that.. an AMERICAN life this way in a time of war. How do you say, “The Taliban can save us alot of legal hassles and legal bills” and how in the happy hell does no one staple you to a pole in the city center? We are going bat-shit crazy over the President calling a stupid situation.. stupid.. but calling for a terrorist act to be committed on one of our own, a solider in our military during a time of war no less, to be murdered is ignore and somehow… news?

Let me say it like this.. I don’t give a proper fuck if Pfc Bowe Bergdahl walked away,danced away, or was lead away under the guise of getting a piece of ass in the desert.. I don’t care if he’s given up every state secret he knows.. John McCain lasted how long before he gave up everything he knew?.. I don’t care if he tells a hundred propaganda lies while being video-taped by the same people who might have held the camera while Daniel Pearl gave his final video message before they beheaded him. I simply don’t care what this kid did to get captured or has to do to stay alive while in the hands of an enemy who shows no quarter for any man, woman or child.. He is a soldier, he is an American, he is in enemy hands and you will by fuck respect that.  If your mother didn’t teach you that, if your drill sergeant didn’t teach you that.. then maybe you should  take  Bergdahl’s place and show him how it’s really done.

Fox news and Lt. Col Peters,  you might leave your soldiers behind, you might ask terrorists to murder your soldiers because that would make great and riveting news and increased viewership ratings for you..But the real America doesn’t do that..

If this is the conservative way I hope you are as relevant as the Whigs and hurry and go the way of the dodo, because 1st and foremost this liberal knows we get our man back and everything else after that is secondary…

Fox news..you are .. disgusting

**Update**

It’s about damn time…

Jim Miklaszewski, NBC’s Pentagon correspondent, told Maddow on Wednesday night that Bergdahl “came off patrol on June 30th, dropped off his weapon, his body armor, grabbed up a bottle of water, a compass and a knife and took off out on his own. It was sometime after that, apparently, that some local militants grabbed him and turned him over to the Taliban.”

“Should he have left the post alone?” Miklaszewski asked. “Of course not. But that doesn’t make him a deserter.”

He continued: “Military officials I talked to are quite outraged at Peters’ comments, not just the idea perhaps that he suggested that the Taliban should execute Bergdahl, but because it’s totally irresponsible. Here you have a kid, 23-years-old, in custody. He’s got to be terrified. And now, these Peters comments could actually be used by his captors to get even deeper inside Bergdahl’s mind and further erode any confidence that he may have that he will ever come out alive.”

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Here’s another edition  of… Friday Rewind.

I think this weeks talking points, make this rewind apropos..

So without further ado,

Will you help me?

-I’m desperate and really need some help. I don’t know what to do so I am appealing to anyone who reads this. My sister is missing. We have not heard from her in a few days and it is not like her to just take off. We are organizing a search for her Monday morning in the woods around her home in Brevard County. My family and I are not wealthy and we don’t know how long we can sustain our economic livelihood during this time since the worry and stress make us unable to work, if you would like to help we have set up a fund at any Wachovia bank.-

-I’ve lost everything. I tried to evacuate but I am not a wealthy person and I don’t have a car. I don’t know what I am going to do, I have nothing. I lost my entire life in the flood, I can’t work because my job was washed away. I believe there is a fund where you can send donations, please…. Please for the love of God help me.-

-My cousin went to Aruba for graduation. She only drank a little and only did a little drugs, and went home with 3 boys she had just met. She’s missing now and we just know she was raped and murdered. I am a wealthy woman, I can afford to fly back and forth from my home to Aruba, but I don’t know how long I can do this. I will NOT leave my suite at the local 5 star hotel room where I am comp’d my meals, transportation, alcohol, and clothes, until she us found. If you would like to help me in this trying time, there is a fund set up at any local bank.-

-My 82 year old maid will be signing autographs today, there will be a donation bowl on the table. Thank you for making an old woman’s day.-

-My father was killed in a terrorist attack. I don’t know what I am going to do with out him. Please send money to help me thru this trying time.-

Please help me, my job does not offer healthcare, my husbands job does offer it but the monthly premiums are over $800 for a family of four. I have some medical issues that I really need to see a doctor about. Neither of my kids have seen a doctor for a well-check in over 4 years. When they are sick or injured, even if it is just a case of strep throat I have to take them to the ER because I cannot afford to pay the doctor visit at the time of service. If my kids would only get sick or injured before I pay the mortgage and utilities things would be a lot easier. My husband and my combined income is over $50k a year so we do not qualify for any Medicaid and we are not old enough for Medicare.. Is there anything, anything at all you can do to help me?

Which one of these will get the most help? Which will get the least? If we banded together as a race of humans, which would help all of us more in the long run? Which one will we just roll our eyes and tell the person to get a better job and stop asking for the government to supplement you?

Why is that? Why can we, as Americans, be so giving when see or hear of a disaster?

Tsunami a world away? No problem we can band together and donate 100’s of millions.

9/11 attack? Oh my god how horrible, and NO Timmy you can’t have an ice cream today because I have to send money to those poor people who had families in the buildings.

Your child is missing? How can I help? I can take some days off work and drive over to your county to help you search anytime I can.

Yet be so Goddamn stingy when it comes to helping people who didn’t have a building fall on them.
No healthcare? Well get a job you dead-beat subhuman.

The one thing we can help everyone in the country on is the one thing we will complain about giving money to. It’s Charity for the unworthy, it’s Socialism at its finest, it’s taking my hard earned money and giving to the lazy drunks of the world.

We’re not unfeeling. We give when there is a cause to give. Just look at this list and see how giving we can be

• September 11th Victim Compensation Fund paid out approx $7 billion to the families

• September 11th Fund collected and dispersed an additional $534 million from more than two million donors

• $950m from the US Government to the Tsunami victims

• An additional $515m donated by the private sector for the Tsunami relief fund

• $800m for hurricane Katrina relief in just the first 2 weeks

• $7m donated to Virginia Tech Memorial Fund after the shootings

And a rumored $20m donated to the Natalie Holloway Fund for her mother, friends, family, searchers and friends of searchers. Even though they were all comp’d everything from their plane tickets to Aruba to the bathing suits and the Gucci sunglasses they needed.

See, we’re not heartless…

So why is it ‘Welfare’ when we want to help a single mother and ‘Socialism’ when we want to help anyone who is a part of this country? If you added up all of those donations it seems to be you would have nice start to paying for Universal Healthcare.

Cuba doesn’t have a car newer than 1965 or anything but corrugated metal roofs on their hut homes… but they have universal healthcare.

France, Italy, Britain, Canada…. All have universal health care. The argument here against it, is that healthcare would decline if we switched. Well, the World Health Organization already ranks us 37th in healthcare, which is below places like Costa Rica, Columbia and Dominica. When we’re ranked below a place such as Columbia does it matter if we decline any more? What’s the worst that can happen? That we only rank up there with Canada (30)? Or that we rank below Slovenia (38)?

France is number 1 and Italy is number 2 on the WHO’s list. Sure they pay more taxes to be number 1 and 2, but is that such a big deal? We donated $20m to a mother who lost her daughter when she went out and got shit-faced and went home with 3 men she had never met. We paid $7 million to people affected by a shooting in Virginia. We don’t seem to mind when we pay for stuff like this, so what the hell is wrong with paying for a universal healthcare plan that will improve everyone’s health?

It’s not Socialism or Welfare when we give when we want to. It’s the Christian thing to do. So why isn’t Christian to help some of the 45 million people in this country without healthcare?

What’s the worst that can happen? Will homes suddenly be foreclosed on in record numbers? Will gas prices suddenly rise? Will milk go up to $4.89 a gallon? Will one pain pill cost $60? Will the cost of an MRI go up over $2400 or will a hospital ER visit take longer? What’s the worst that can happen???? Besides the insurance and pharma companies making $2B in profit instead of $3B and the middle class living a healthier life….what IS the downfall to making sure every American has the right to Life, Liberty and a Free pap smear and colorectal exam?

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It’s hard to know what will rile up the left, or ekg, since some things that seem innocuous to me will set off her red alert button.  To be fair, it works both ways.  The allegation that the President was breaking the law in firing an Inspector General who was investigating a supporter of the President draws not even a yawn from her or the left.  Whether or not a real crime comes from that remains to be seen, but I doubt it will ever be a story on the level of Bush’s firing of his Justice Department Attorney Generals, which generated quite a bit media angst and airplay, even though Bush’s actions were perfectly legal.

That’s why I don’t get wound up at each Bush/Rove/Cheney “war crime.”  I expect the media to pick apart the Bush administration memo by memo and I have a perfect ironic faith that the media will leave no stone unturned.  If the Bush administration is guilty of crimes, they won’t stay hidden.  Every parking ticket will generate a Congressional committee to investigate the heinous atrocity of double parking by the evil denizens of the Bush White House.

So, when I’m told that the Bush administration falsified CIA threat assessments to justify shitting (once again) on the Constitution, I tend to think, “been there, done that.”  Like a conspiracy theorist, no amount of debunking will disprove it.  For the conspiracist, debunking is always proof of just how far reaching the conspiracy is.

So, when presented with this:

The IG report said an unnamed White House official inserted a paragraph into the first threat assessment prepared by the CIA after the Sept. 11 attacks, which was used to justify the extraordinary intelligence measures.

The paragraph said that the “individuals and organizations involved in global terrorism possessed the capability and intention to undertake further terrorist attacks within the United States,” according to the report. It also said that the president should authorize the NSA to conduct the surveillance activities.

I admit it, I shrugged.

So with my ironic faith in the media, I assume that if there was something really to this, Brian Williams would have informed me promptly at 6:30 pm, every single evening until Bush was arrested and perp walked to a paddy wagon.  Mr.  Williams has not made a peep.  If taken at face value, it does sound bad, but then I have to remember, if it’s so bad, why isn’t it a bigger story?  So I went right to the source material itself.

The unclassified version of the IG report on The President’s Surveillance Program is the source of the blurb in the above news article.  What’s interesting to me is what the news article left out.  Editing I suppose although the purpose of that article was more general than the insertion of one paragraph into a threat assessment: 

After the terrorism analysts completed their portion of the memoranda, the DCI Chief of Staff added a paragraph at the end of the memoranda stating that the individuals and organizations involved in global terrorism (and discussed in the memoranda) possessed the capability and intention to undertake further terrorist attacks within the United States. The DCI Chief of Staff recalled that the paragraph was provided to him by a senior White House official. The paragraph included the DCI’s recommendation to the President that he authorize the NSA to conduct surveillance activities under the PSP.  CIA Office of General Counsel Attorneys reviewed the draft threat assessment memoranda to determine whether they contained sufficient threat information and an compelling case  for reauthorization of the PSP.  If either was lacking, an OCG attorney would request that an analysts provide additional threat information or make revisions to the draft memoranda.

The threat assessment memoranda were then signed by the DCI.  George Tenent signed most of the threat memoranda prepared during his tenure as DCI.  On the few occasions he was unavailable, the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, John E. McLaughlin, signed the memoranda on behalf of Tenent.  McLaughlin also signed the memoranda in the capacity of acting DCI in August and September 2004.

So the paragraph added by the unnamed White House official was inserted by the DCI Chief of Staff, and signed by the DCI, George Tenent in this case, every 45 days.  This sounds a lot less like threat assessment fraud by the White House and more like standard boilerplate on the threat assessment template in Word.  So forget the White House for a second, these threat assessments were reviewed by the CIA lawyers as well; presumably before Tenent signed each version.

There were no occasions in which the DCI or acting DCI withheld their signatures from the threat assessment memoranda.  The memoranda were co-signed by the Secretary of Defense, reviewed by the Attorney General, and delivered to the White House to be attached to the PSP Presidential Authorizations signed by the President.

Well if the former President goes down for this, he will be taking a lot of people with him. 

My take?  No laws were broken and nothing will come of this.  If there is something to it, I have faith in the old media routing it out.  They are constantly on the look out for a new Watergate  In the meantime, if you’ve ever seen a threat assessment, there is a lot of boilerplate to them.  I suspect this is more of the same.  In the meantime, the left screams.  They are in charge and they still can’t purge the old guard that’s already gone home.

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In another discussion with Lil Mike, I’ve come to realize that I just talk to freaking much-LOL.. But seriously, it struck me that if he doesn’t understand.. then maybe others don’t see the big deal either, and that scares me. If we could for once.. just once take the political party out of the equation and base our verdict on the facts, I don’t think any of us would see things differently..  But we can’t take the (R) and the (D) out of the equation because then our entire world crumbles when we find out we’ve been duped and in the end supported a lie. Where we should be angry at the one who made us into the fool, we are angry at ourselves and not many of us like the idea that we were taken for a ride. It’s why ponzie schemes work so well.. Who wants to admit that they really believed the 40% return they were promised was real and legal..

I wrote a blog the other day

The special powers an (R) next to your name gives you…

In it, I talk about the mess we find ourselves in today, the news that the Investigators General found that the White House inserted it’s own wording into a threat assessment from the CIA and then used that paragraph to enact an unconstitutional doctrine..

To explain it more would take to much space and this reply isn’t about the paragraph as much as it’s about how that deceitful act is more detrimental to the principals this country was build on.. Life,Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness then anything we’ve seen so far.

Once again, my reply to Mike..

“That[inserting of the paragraph] opens a whole can of worms, but the actual paragraph, I don’t find a lie or contraversal. Do you? How would that change anything?”

The easiest 1st.. How does it change anything? If the White House is allowed to make up what they want, to get what they want.. how does that NOT change anything?  Please explain how you support any President doing this? Because I think you are slowly realizing that just because we had an (R) President for awhile, doesn’t mean we will always have an (R) president, we will eventually get a (D) and you can’t be ok with allowing this to continue when a (D) has the precedent..

But more than that… where do you draw the line?  The President can make up what he wants for security reasons that hamper constitutional rights… he can hold false PC hearings that tell us the ‘news’ he wants us to hear… he can use ‘plants’ to steer the topics of real PC’s to the direction he wants..   where do you draw the line? You don’t like the MSM being liberal, but you’re ok with the complete fabrication coming from your oval office?

Now the other part of your justification…that you don’t find it a lie… How do you know this paragraph is true? Because  it fits in with your opinion?

Had it been true (or a true threat) the CIA would have put it in there right? But they didn’t find anything like that so, the White House made it up.. at that time atleast, you were made to believe a falsehood that the Oval office told you.. and worse than that.. that falsehood was then used to convince you the NSA program (and so many others just because of the butterfly effect-) was needed, because that statement saying it was needed, was also inserted falsely..

In this instant, I won’t make your head swim at how much of a can of worms it is because I don’t think you would ever acknowledge it.. but in this instant, you..we were hoodwinked.

Bush/Cheney wanted the NSA program.. we’ll leave off the ulterior motives for that right now and just stick to that.. They wanted it and asked the CIA to give them a reason.. The CIA did what it was supposed to do, it investigated and put together a threat assessment.But, it wasn’t threatening enough to get Bush/Cheney what they wanted so they made up their own assessment and then used what they made up to bring to Congress and the American ppl to get that NSA program..

I really can’t believe you don’t see the implications of this. I don’t care whats going on in the world.. a President of the United States cannot make up a story, attach the CIA’s name to that story… and then steal rights from the citizens of the country because of that story.. That’s not what this country is build upon!

I won’t get into the problems this creates for the CIA… but take a minute and think about that…

Let’s look at the broad implications.. If, as you say, the paragraph was true then how can anything from the CIA ever be useful again? If they can’t get the threat right,  and it takes someone from the White House..(and we both know there might be 2 people in the White House who would know as much as the CIA on any given intelligence assessments)..but if it takes someone from the White House to see the real threats and tell people about it, then how do we believe anything from our intelligence division again? How can we trust their competence?

Ask yourself this, if it was so true, why didn’t they(the White House) put that paragraph out there themselves? Why did they attach it to  the CIA’s briefing. They had to have some intelligence from somewhere saying these things right? So why did they have to put it in a CIA memo? Why didn’t they make the intelligence division who gave them  the information, put out their own memo? Who was that intelligence division anyway and why are they to be believed over the CIA?

Or did the White House just make it up?

You can’t ignore those scenarios because they are the only two that exist.

Let’s go farther..
You will admit that the NSA program is a massive invasion of privacy.. one that, in your opinion is needed though..-yes?  Well, now you’ve just been told that the CIA did not find  reason enough for it and  the President made up a reason on his own and stole privacy from the American people.. your reason for it was made up! You may have felt there was a good reason, you may have been happy that the CIA report backed you up.. but the truth is, it didn’t!  I may love the idea that a chocolate diet helps me lose weight, but I can’t write my own little paragraph and insert it into Jenny Craig’s website saying it..

Bring this down to an easier level. You’ve been accused of killing someone. The local PD gets involved and investigates you, sure you look guilty and you probably did do it, but while everything looks bad against you, there really isn’t much to report. At an internal briefing on the status of your case the DA says.. Ok, well I want this guy wire-tapped.. The cops say, “well..we do too, but we can’t find a reason for it” .. So the DA decides to write a paragraph that does implicate you, it’s not  based on anyting he’s been told-he just makes it up on the spot and he hands it to the cops and says.. “Now go get your wire-tap“. The cops go to a judge and say “Judge, read this paragraph right here, that’s why we need this wire-tap” and the judge says “Ok”..

Is this legal? and more than that..is that what you are saying you are happy to go along with in this country..

Is this what you want your President to do and will you ignore it now that you know what he did?

Is this the level of power you wish to give to the already most power office in the world?

If you want to allow a President and Vice President to arbitrarily make up their own reasons to do things that are unconstitutional…then why are you fighting government run health care.. why are you fighting government   run anything?

You didn’t’ serve this country for the last 25 years to allow your president to make up a fantasy to get something he wanted..did you?

I know this is difficult.. because to admit this opens a can of worms that could devour a country. You wouldn’t believe a liar who lied to you, or a thief who stole from you in your personal life.. but to believe this?  Wouldn’t this alone make you question.. What else did they do this on?

and I think that is why you will ignore this as a problem, because the  answer to that.. is something you don’t want to know..

Let’s face it, larger picture is extremely  frightening.How many other times did this happen? Besides just the NSA program, what other things did the White House insert it’s own wording into and then use that wording to get their way on… Is it possible it’s all been a lie or based on a lie? and what do we do about it? To investigate further might tell us the scariest truth we’ve ever dreamed up.. but to ignore it–well, that blesses every President from now until we resemble Russia Circa Stalin, which on that path, would be in our lifetime.

This can’t be what you and thousands of others like you served their country for..your oath didn’t say to protect the President when he lies to get his way-even if you agree with that way… did it?

It always seems like there is something in an (R) and (D) psyche that is almost like they feel if they acknowledge this.. like a house of cards, the whole thing will crumble. But if that house of cards is an illusion built on a lie, why would you want it to stand in the 1st place?

Where is your anger over what was done in your name?

Where is the line? Would it be OK for the Oval Office to make up a threat assessment with the intelligence community’s name on it, that says we must nuke a rival country and then go out on every “Meet the Press” tv show that will have them and promote this insertion?

Where does your tolerance end?

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I’m sitting here refreshing Drudge and Cnn while simultaneously flipping through all the headline news shows… and no hoopla!

You’d think with months of screaming, ranting,crying, and those  tea-parties, someone would have mentioned that we are now  ‘less Socialistic’ …

If I could stomach listening to Boss Limbaugh, I would see if he was sweating and dancing to the tune of Beck’s  “Loser”. Since President Obama has most certainly failed in his attempt to turn the USA into the county of the New National Socialist Party,  with his ingenious take over of the banks and car companies.. whilst driving the rest of the country into the shittier by stealing our wealth and spreading it amongst the elites…

but nope, nothing.. instead I get the news from my favorite ‘Mo…

Chrysler Financial repays $1.5

bln US gov’t loans

DETROIT, July 14 (Reuters) – Chrysler Financial said on Tuesday it has paid off $1.5 billion in loans it had received from the U.S. Department of Treasury in January to fund vehicle loans and incentive programs for Chrysler consumers…

BB&T repays TARP money

Seven months after it accepted $3.1 billion from the federal government, BB&T Corp. – a longtime opponent of big government – repaid the money with interest Wednesday.

$93 million in profit was made off that investment.. Not too shabby in my opinion.

FirstMerit repaying TARP

loan this month

An Ohio bank with more than a dozen branches in the region announced plans this week to repay the federal government’s more than $125 million investment under the Capital Purchase Program.

In fact, if it had not been for the ‘mo..and the 2nd story I never would have known that American Express, Bank of New York Mellon, Capital One, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Northern Trust, State Street and U.S. Bancorp also announced that they had repaid their loans from TARP, or the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

I should be surprised that I haven’t heard anything from the biased and untrue liberal MSM.. right?

Then again, if the media really was a ‘liberal slanted monster’ this would be on every headline news crawler and program just to rub it in to the faces of the Chicken Littles who were screaming that we were being taken over by our government…ironically while ignoring that were already  ‘taken over’ by our government..

I guess they are moving on to make more accusation about the Democrats evil attempt to bring socialism to the shores of the country by giving every baby born, house cleaner working, and any one else who likes to choose things for themselves instead of having someone else choose for them, that deplorable option of…. Health Care. So like everything else we’ve seen ignored in the last week.. Chrysler’s repayment will go unnoticed because it’s easier to keep throwing the kitchen sink of accusations than it is to actually give it a minute to see if it just might work.. It’s more patriotic to wish failure for the Government attempt to stop the slide into another depression era than it is to say “OK, that was my bad.. Carry on”.

Anyway, thank you for the $93 million in profit BB&T.. it was a pleasure doing business with you.. Come again soon.

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Forgive me Kiefer, For  I have sinned…

Lestat, I… am ashamed.

Louis,Armand and even Bill and Erik…. I apologize.

“Maggots, Michael. You’re eating maggots.

How do they taste?”

After months of pressure from a conniving 13 year old… I caved! In a weak moment she got me to do that which was unthinkable… She tricked me with some kind of sorcery that only the baby of the family possesses over the mother.. That’s right children, the dedicated disciple and believer of the motto… ‘Those vampires are pussies and I will not sully the memory of real vampires, of my vampires.. by watching or reading that filth’.. The lion, as it was, fell to the lamb and watched Twilight…

and it didn’t suck.

Before watching, the girls and I.. ok the oldest girl and I, were trying to explain to the youngest that we didn’t really want to see the movie because these vampires were pussies..Sorry, but it was true… they were goody-sissy boys who couldn’t compete with their predecessors. I finally told the young child…“Look, these are not my vampires.. these are not your sister’s vampires.. these are your vampires and yours alone… and you can’t make us give up our vamps and like yours because yours, break the number one rule of being a vampire!!!”

Oh how naive I was..

Everyone has that moment in their life when, for the first time they find themselves saying “Oh yeah, I’d be a vampire for him”.. and while my moment didn’t totally come until Lestat… Kiefer Sutherland in The Lost Boys had me unconditionally and irrevocably in love and glamored for life ..My oldest daughter explained to her sister that her moment was with Spike and it was rekindled when she saw Henry Fitzroy. Finally, my youngest  understood what we were saying when we said, “your girly-boy vampires will ruin the memory of our bad-boy ones”, but that didn’t stop her from forcing us to watch these… new, ’shimmering’ ,day walkers.

BUT! credit given where credit is due. They weren’t as horribly dishonoring as I expected.  No, Edward isn’t Monsieur De Lioncourt or even his beloved Louis.. and James could have learned a few things from Kiefer, but in the end or more specifically the middle(of the movie), I had fallen for them anyway. Edward’s brooding was too seductive to overcome, his resistance to Bella and final capitulation was too sweet to deny…and his protectiveness over her was just too honorable..

No, Edward will not replace the bad boy vampire I am truly in love with.. he is no match for Lestat, David, and most recently Eric Northman but,he is good enough to be given a second peek.. even if that peek completes my fall from grace..

That’s right baseball fans, I’m heading out today to buy that which I have mocked for over a year now… the fucking “Twilight Saga” book series. Before last night this mission would have had to be done covertly, under the cover of the midday Florida sun so as not too alert those who I truly adore, to my seedy affair..but after last night I am admittedly… Team Edward and not (too) embarrassed to admit it…

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This whole Sarah Palin thing irks the hell out of me and not for the reasons you would think. All of a sudden I find myself feeling sorry for her and the attention paid to her over the last few months and it bothers the hell of out of me to feel sorry for the woman…

I do not blame the MSM or Dave Letterman though for the attention paid to her though… I blame Bush..

huh?

oops, sorry.. after 8 years it’s just a force of habit!

But seriously, I blame John McCain and Sarah Palin’s hubris.

I cannot for the life of me fathom the thought process that went through John McCain’s heads and ended up producing the statement “I choose Sarah Palin as my Vice Presidential running mate”… and the thoughts that must have gone through his head saying “..and no body will question who she is, where she comes from,her political history,her family dirt,her sanity..or mine, because she just so darn pretty”

On what planet did either of them really think an absolute 100% no name… could run, with an amazing chance at success at becoming the 1st woman Vice President.. and not a single person in the world wouldn’t say.. “Hey, who’s the new girl?”

Mike was right when he said “The amount of poor and incorrect information on this woman is frankly incredible.” Of course he’s talking about  me, Howie and the MSM for this.. but it was not us who thrust this already, damaged flower onto the open market and demanded that she be accepted as leader of our country in the event of a Presidential disaster all because she and John McCain said so. As if that wasn’t enough, then she opened her mouth and we truly had reasons to fear.

But, were we ‘unfair’ to her.. or were her expectation of unconditional acceptance  to blame for the eventual melt-down. .. yeah, I don’t care what planet your from.. No one term govenor of an extremely large state, who ran for VP and almost won, can decide to quit their office with 2 years left in her term.. and not be seen as the antithesis of a leader on a Presidential scale. When stared down by what she calls an unfair Mainstream media, she blinked.. and blinked hard. What happens during the next cuban missle crisis while she’s President? So yes, it was a melt down.

But are we to blame or does she have a major stake in that arena?

In a campaign where even the Democratic leader’s birth certificate and religion was being eviscerated on television,blogs,papers ,pundits and me all across the land on and hourly basis.. What gave Palin or McCain the idea that she could be launched on the Presidential landscape 6 weeks before the election.. and no one would want to know who the fuck she was? Oh My God, Sotomayor’s entire adult life going back decades are being vetted before we can even have the debate as to whether we should appoint her to the Supreme Court, but we were just supposed to say “Oh, Sarah Palin.. yeah, Ok.. sure-we don’t really need to know jack-shit about the person who will be a heartbeat away from the Presidency”

No, I do not find the MSM as the culprit for all her troubles.. In fact, I think the MSM should be awarded a medal for weeding out a person who was not only unprepared for the spot-light.. but also  exquisitely unprepared for the pressure that would come with the office she was asking to be trusted with.  Had she actually been elected.. well, that’s a nightmare that I am glad I don’t have to witness…

Sarah Palin only has Sarah Palin and John McCain to blame for her larger than life launch onto the full court world press to her eventually crashing and burning. It was not a pretty launch on to the political field to begin with and it was bound to be an even uglier crash.

The Mainstream media did it’s job this time.. they did it at an breakneck pace to be sure.. but only because they were forced to by two people who thought they could sneak an incompetent by because maybe this country wasn’t as ready for a black man named Hussein as their opponents thought.

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ekg here…what you’re about to read is  what lil Mike and I do, this is where we are in our comfort zone and where we excel. It’s long, it’s tedious, but the final result is an all out information explosive.. We have done this kind of exchange for years on muchedumbre.com. When we started ‘blogging’, we forgot that which made us great… the quote/reply debate, because it’s hard to get into that sort of debate in a ‘blog-comment’ section..

well, not anymore…

Here is my rebuttal to Lil Mike’s

Public Option? -> Only Option

Feel free to join in the debate in the comment sections.

..

” But one thing is clear, if it’s going to be reform in any way that Obama and the far left of the Democratic Party care about, it’s got to have the “Public Option.”  Right now the administration is having it both ways.  On the one hand it’s saying that it has no intention of driving private insurers out of business, but on the other hand, reassuring Congressional Democrats that the President is still committed to having a public option as part of his vision of health care reform.

Why the Public Option?  The formal answer was included in Obama’s letter to Senators Kennedy and Baucus:

“I strongly believe that Americans should have the choice of a public health insurance option operating alongside private plans. This will give them a better range of choices, make the health care market more competitive, and keep insurance companies honest.”

Competition?  There are approximately 1300 health insurance providers in the US.  Really, will 1301 really make the difference and suddenly lead to “a better range of choices, make the health care market more competitive, and keep insurance companies honest?”  That’s all it would take, just one more provider?  The idea is so ridiculous that you would have to be a White House journalist to buy it.”

Ok, will one more provider really make a difference? Absofuckinglutley!  Yes, 1300 companies offering the same shitty product would actually have to offer a better option if a bigger and better player came on to the scene. Your debate isn’t whether the Government can offer a product that will make the other companies provide a better choice, your argument is… Should the Government offer that product at all.. So let’s not play games with throwing in all this other stuff..

“What makes the public option the crown jewel of any health care reform plan?  It’s the camel’s nose under the tent for single payer government healthcare.  No, this isn’t just Republican scare-mongering.  I can hardly imagine any other conclusion for the insistence on a government healthcare plan.  And it’s easy to see how it would happen.  The logic is this:  One of the keys of health care reform is an individual mandate, but you can’t very well have one if people cannot afford to buy health insurance, so you have to provide an option for people too poor to pay.  Enter the public option.  An analysis of several public option scenarios shows that premiums could be 30 to 40 percent less than comparable private plans.  That of course hinges on the government paying reimbursement rates comparable to Medicare, which are 70-80 percent of what private insurers pay.”

I read your Lewin Group PDF analysis it was interesting.. until I Googled them and found out that..

Lewin Group is) part of Ingenix, which is owned by United Healthcare Group, the insurance behemoth that has been buying up insurance companies left and right, expanding its reach into just about every segment of the health-insurance market. Its flagship, UnitedHealthcare, helps make it the largest health insurer in the country. It’s a safe bet that United is not too keen on a public plan that might shrink its business.

Now I don’t find them credible in this discussion..Sorry about that but seriously, you wouldn’t allow me to use Rahm’s notes as actual unbiased data would you?But let’s address this ‘fear-mongering’ warpath scream of “Single Payer Healthcare-Oh My”..  Why is it that every time a Democrat tries to do anything you Pub’s start screaming ‘Government take-over!” “Government Control” “States Right!” and“Give me Liberty” , when after 8 years of massive Government abuse, Lenin-ish intrustion, insane Government spending,  and obscene Government entitlements there was nothing but the sound-bite of “If you’re not with the President, you are with the terrorists” to anyone who raised a fart of a question?

But now, Oh My God! We’re killing health care…!! We’re taxing people too much..!! Businesses will crumble..!!

really?

Did you know that Bush’s medicare proposal was…

…aimed to inject market forces into Medicare by encouraging beneficiaries to enroll in government-subsidized private health plans that would compete directly with the traditional government-run, fee-for-service program. The drug benefit would be the chief inducement for seniors to make the switch to private plans.

Maybe I missed it, but were there Fox News sponsored Tea-parties for that?

Something else I just found out (by the way, this is why Mike and I do this so well… during our hunt for facts we often find other facts that come in handy in other debates) “The Patriot Act and Department of Homeland Security was the brainchild of one William Jefferson Clinton.” Sure the website is a little nutty and over the top in it’s ‘doomsday’ opinions, and in all seriousness I shouldn’t link it because you will use it against me, but what the hell.. it pretty much spells out everything I’m saying about what the Pubs were happy to do with a Pub leader and shit themselves when it’s a Democrat doing the same thing. Best of all, it does it with the same chicken-little hyperbole you guys are using now..

In short, Bush’s encouragement to beneficiaries to enroll out of their private plans and into the government plan didn’t bring about “Single-Payer Storm troopers” and neither will President Obama’s. But if… if it did, once again you can thank Bush for that ummm…camel nose under the tent… since he started the ball rolling…

Of course I loathe the ‘It’s Bush’s fault” argument.. It was fun for a few years there, but now it’s just old,crusty and only garners a slight roll of the eyes… The problem is, there are just so many fucking things that are his fault and you Pubs are just now finding that out because Obama is following in his footsteps on alot of them. So as loathsome as it is to say.. it’s still applicable.

Moving on…

“So one of the ways the Obama plan controls costs is just by paying the doctors and hospitals less.  I’m sure that will make a great incentive for people to go into the medical field.  And who wouldn’t want to be taxed to subsidize their competitor?”

President Obama will pay doctors less and therefore who would ever go into the med field.. An addendum to this argument is the.. “we will become a 3rd world health care system because there will be no incentives (money) for research”… OK 1st, we already are below many 3rd world countries when it comes to our health care and as for the rest? Well,  I can think of one disease that if it wasn’t for the French, not only would we still be calling it GRID, who knows when someone would have been able to isolate the AIDS retrovirus. Hell, it was a German who discovered that HPV was the leading cause in cervical cancer…

As for being paid less? When did we lose that ‘country doctor’ mentality of people becoming a doctor to help people? Was it around the same time insurance companies first started popping up? I’d really love to see a study on the correlation of the emergence of insurance companies and their control and doctors treating people less because it’s what they dream of doing and more to try and become a million by the time they are 30.

In short, I don’t know what President Obama’s plans on the pay scale for doctors and hospitals is. I know that right now we spend more money on administration costs than just about anything else. Medicare proves that you only need to spend 2% on admin costs and still function admirably.. $230 billion a year is spent in California alone on administration costs, Obama’s plan cost less than 1/2 that for the entire country.. so why those  massive saving would not trickle down throughout the system is beyond me.  To me, it would seem that if $25 from every $100 doctor visit that went to insurance administration now, was cut to $2, the doctor would be seeing a hell of alot better of a return.

“First, the same analysis shows that depending on the premium rate for the public option, 119 million people could lose their private health insurance…If the public plan has lower premiums, what do they care what rate their doctor gets paid at?  Others would find themselves dumped.  Why would companies want the expense of maintaining their own health insurance coverage when a public plan can offer lower premiums?”

I addressed this somewhat above when I brought Bush’s plan to get people off the private rolls and onto the public ones  to your attention already, but that’s not my argument against it, a bad plan is a bad plan no matter who the President is, something the Republican  religion doesn’t like to admit..My argument is this… I believe you are wrong.. those insurance companies will be forced to compete with the new plan.. they will have to offer something else, whether it be a lower premium or more coverage or an annual trip to Bermuda..whatever.. I mean do you seriously think they’ll just keel over and die? Hell no, they’ll find something that their competitor doesn’t have and offer it..

Back in the 90’s I was fired for being pregnant, lost my insurance(not that I had prenatal anyway), and was forced to go on Medicaid. HMO’s were exploding at that time and you were forced to pick either an HMO or straight medicaid. There was many HMO’s to chose from  and they all pretty much offered the same plans as each other and medicaid but since there was competition, the HMO’s decided to offer other incentives to get people to enroll in their plan. It was piddly shit like  children vitamins each month with this one, free contacts with that one, free vitamins,contacts and bubble gum with the other..(ok, not really on the bubble gum.. but you get the point).. the catch was you had to use their doctors,their hospitals and their pharmacies. Or you could stick with medicaid and go with pretty much whoever you wanted. I liked my doctor and she took medicaid so I chose that path. So when you tell me that a government sponsored plan will not only force people out of their private plan but will force private plans to close up shop and move away.. I laugh! These companies want to succeed today just as much as they want to succeed tomorrow and they will find a way to entice employers to keep paying them.. Whether that be free vitamins or a free trip to Bora-Bora for the employer who signs up the most employees onto their plan.Most, if not all, will adapt and  survive… and those that don’t? Well, you don’t mind when they fall in a full capitalistic society do you?

So why is a Public plan the only option? Because without it there is no change.. With it there is a crack in the monopoly-like hold insurance companies have on this country and it’s leaders. They have never had to worry about regulation and competition before and now they are throwing out all the buzz words that make  conservative hard.. “Socialism”..”Government sponsored”..”Government entitlement”… and to that I say Pshaw! Look what the debate has already done for health care… before a person was actually denied  treatment for her cancer because her insurance company said an outbreak of pimples in her past constituted a ‘pre-existing conditions’.Pimples!  But now all of a sudden insurance companies are screaming that sure,  they can get rid of the pre-existing conditions clause. The debate alone is forcing other companies to offer more benefits at a lower cost to women in some states.. The debate alone is changing health care for the better.. If the debate is cleaning up health care and the conglomerate-do-as-they-please  hold on health care that the insurance companies have.. then I am encouraged as to what an actual Public Plan will be able to do.

So, the cost factor? One state already pays 1 and 1/2 times more for just the administrative costs than the public plan for an entire country.

The reduction of doctor’s fee and hospital costs? The savings from the decrease in administration costs should increase what the medical providers see.

The loss of research and cutting edge medicine? You walk into the  Pasteur Institute and tell them they’re a 2nd tier institute.

Socialism? Please.. George Socialist Bush!

The loss of a free market? No, more like the opening of a closed market and forcing it to become competitive to survive..

Yes… Public Option? is the only Option

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