As Cornyn voted against SCHIP...

He knew about this story.....

It was while he was at school one Thursday in February that Deamonte complained of toothache. On the Saturday he had emergency surgery. An abscess had spread to his brain.

A few weeks later he died.

"Everyone here was shocked," says Ms James.

"They couldn't understand how he could have toothache and then die. We sometimes give the little kids candy as a reward; well, for a while they stopped taking it because they would say 'if I get a cavity, will I die?'"

Deamonte's mother, Alyce, could not afford private health insurance and in the US there is no state health service.

Mr Bush believes the bill extends the programme too far

For the poorest there is some free treatment, called Medicaid. But not all dentists or doctors accept Medicaid patients, and Alyce Driver could not afford to pay to have Deamonte's tooth extracted.

This story is not a one-off. Some 45 million Americans are without health insurance, nine million of them children.

Many say it is America's national scandal.

In Washington political opponents have come together on this issue, in part driven by the outcry over Deamonte.

This week, lawmakers - both Democrat and Republican - supported a bill that would help fund insurance for four million more children.

In the Senate, the bill passed 67-29. It also passed in the House of Representatives but with less than the two-thirds majority needed to override a presidential veto.

The proposed bill extends the State Children's Health Insurance Programme (Schip) that subsidises insurance for families who may not be the poorest, but who cannot afford private insurance.

Mr Bush says expanding public funding goes against the principles of private health care, and that subsidising it creates a disincentive for people to buy private care themselves. source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7018057.stm

I say Sen. Cornyn should have to face all the parents on SCHIP in a auditorium and tell them to their faces why their children don't deserve medical care. Then, I would like to see him get rid of his own government subsidized health insurance, paid for on my dime, and see how 48 million Americans face even a minor illness.

America's Dialogue II - National Health Care

From August, 2007, right up to the presidential primaries in February, 2008, America's Dialogue discussions will be taking place all across the country, centering on a new 27-minute video, America's Dialogue II.

No End In Sight, PBS's NOW discusses the movie

Ken Burns documentary on WW II, called "The War," is well worth watching. It's on tonight at 8 pm on KLRN. Tune in.To find out when further episodes are running, go here. If you want to set up email reminders for further episodes go here.

Bush's speech at the UN today

The Moron in chief gets phonetic spelling in his speeches!

Accidentally leaked today: The United States salutes the nations that have recently taken strides toward liberty – including Ukraine, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan [KEYRgeez-stan], Mauritania [moor-EH-tain-ee-a], Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Morocco.

However, the most egregious thing was the content of the speech. Bush talks about human liberty, inherent dignity, equal and inalienable rights, freedom, justice and peace, as quoted below. How dare he stand in front of this body of world leaders and LIE? He cannot actually believe a word he is saying! It is amazing that he had the chutzpah to stand there and say any of this, while he stokes a war, takes away our rights, tortures people, and eliminated the right of habeas corpus. WTF!

A portion of his speech:

Sixty years ago, representatives from 16 nations gathered to begin deliberations on a new international bill of rights. The document they produced is called the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and It stands as a landmark achievement In the history of human liberty. It opens by recognizing "the inherent dignity" and the "equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family" as "the foundation of freedom, justice, and peace in the world." And as we gather for this 62nd General Assembly, the standards of the Declaration must guide our work in the world.

This Week on the Daily Show

MONDAY 9/24 -- John Bowe -- Journalist, author of "Nobodies: Modern American Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the New Global Economy"

TUESDAY 9/25 -- Evo Morales -- President of Bolivia

WEDNESDAY 9/26 -- Jamie Foxx -- Actor, "The Kingdom"

THURSDAY 9/27 -- Ken Burns -- Documentary filmmaker, "The War"

This Week on the Colbert Report

MONDAY 9/24 -- Thomas Friedman -- author, The "World Is Flat"

TUESDAY 9/25 -- John Grisham -- author, "Playing For Pizza: A Novel"

WEDNESDAY 9/26 -- Tony Bennett, in a full band performance

THURSDAY 9/27 -- David Schwartz -- chief curator, Museum of the Moving Image

The Moron in Chief speaks

Doh!

The Right's Garden of False Narratives

In this guest essay, poet Phil Rockstroh explores the personal and societal implications of foisting false reality on a nation:

One would think that from the cries of (feigned) indignation and calls for repentance arising from conservatives regarding Move-On.org's ad in the N.Y. Times that the liberal-leaning group had not simply questioned the insights and intentions of a public servant, promoting, in a public forum, the policy of an illegal and immoral occupation of a sovereign nation; rather, the folks of Move-On.org had committed blasphemy against the holy name of some revered saint -- General Mary Petraeus, Mother of God.

The false outrage of perpetually offended conservatives serves as cover for the true outrages of our era, including: truncated civil liberties, rising levels of social and economic inequality and injustice, and foreign wars of aggression waged by an insular and secretive executive branch and fought by a permanent underclass...

The outrages keep arriving, because the collective imagination of the citizen/consumers of the US, arbitrated by a careerist media elite, has been, for decades, in the thrall of false narratives that serve the interests of the elite of the corporate/militarist classes.

Concurrently, a sense of unease and despair, due to a sense of personal and collective powerlessness before exploitive power, has created the tone and tenor of the times, and begot the phenomenon of supine liberalism and Viagra conservatism. (In this way, liberals stand fecklessly by, as the public is, time and time again, screwed by the decrepit schemes of the right.)

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/092007a.html#When:09:15AM (link)

Our nation is being destroyed by the right, as Dem leadership wimps out

The Right's Garden of False Narratives

By Phil Rockstroh
September 20, 2007

Editor’s Note: At the core of the rot that is destroying the American Republic are the many false narratives that have replaced the nation's real history. The Right has proved adept at creating these alluring story lines and selling them through a vast and sophisticated media apparatus, while the mainstream press goes silent or plays along.

In this guest essay, poet Phil Rockstroh explores the personal and societal implications of foisting false reality on a nation:

One would think that from the cries of (feigned) indignation and calls for repentance arising from conservatives regarding Move-On.org's ad in the N.Y. Times that the liberal-leaning group had not simply questioned the insights and intentions of a public servant, promoting, in a public forum, the policy of an illegal and immoral occupation of a sovereign nation; rather, the folks of Move-On.org had committed blasphemy against the holy name of some revered saint -- General Mary Petraeus, Mother of God.

The false outrage of perpetually offended conservatives serves as cover for the true outrages of our era, including: truncated civil liberties, rising levels of social and economic inequality and injustice, and foreign wars of aggression waged by an insular and secretive executive branch and fought by a permanent underclass.

The outrages keep arriving, because the collective imagination of the citizen/consumers of the US, arbitrated by a careerist media elite, has been, for decades, in the thrall of false narratives that serve the interests of the elite of the corporate/militarist classes.

Concurrently, a sense of unease and despair, due to a sense of personal and collective powerlessness before exploitive power, has created the tone and tenor of the times, and begot the phenomenon of supine liberalism and Viagra conservatism. (In this way, liberals stand fecklessly by, as the public is, time and time again, screwed by the decrepit schemes of the right.)

full article, well worth reading

The question in my mind: How do we counter this, or will we sit idly by watching our country go to the dogs?

George W. Bush's Thug Nation

Article by Robert Parry

It’s said that over time Presidents – especially two-termers – imbue the nation with their personalities and priorities, for good or ill. If that’s true, it could help explain the small-minded mean-spiritedness that seems to be pervading the behavior of the United States these days, both at home and abroad.

On a global level, the world reads about trigger-happy Blackwater “security contractors” mowing down civilians in Baghdad, the U.S. military killing unarmed people under loose “rules of engagement” in both Afghanistan and Iraq, and the CIA “rendering” suspected Islamists to secret prisons or to third-country dungeons where torture is practiced.

Inside the United States, too, a police-state mentality is taking hold. After more than six years of having dissent against President George W. Bush equated with disloyalty, police from Capitol Hill to college campuses are treating vocal disagreement as grounds for violently “taking down” citizens, while bouncers at campaign rallies hustle away prospective hecklers and police preemptively detain protesters or stick them in faraway “free-speech zones.”

On Sept. 17 at a University of Florida public forum with Sen. John Kerry, D-Massachusetts, journalism student Andrew Meyer asked an animated question about Kerry’s hasty concession after Election 2004...

Overseas, it now appears that Bush has authorized “rules of engagement” that have transformed U.S. Special Forces into “death squads,” much like those that roamed Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s identifying “subversives” and murdering them.

full article

Remember also, that Bush can designate US citizens as "enemy combatants." Where will it end? I shudder to think.

Don't Miss the Daily Show Tonight

Remember, Bill Clinton is Jon Stewart's guest tonight.

William Rivers Pitt, did he lose his mind?

I May Have Gone Insane
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Columnist

Wednesday 19 September 2007

We dance round in a ring and suppose,
But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.
- Robert Frost, "The Secret Sits"

It is a legitimately demented phenomenon, all the more so because it all started with a joke. Not even a funny joke, either, but a sad and threadbare thing I told only to myself, and no one else. When the clustered elements of our collective national burden erupted in masterfully synchronized bedlam, as they so often seem to, I had that joke to tell myself, and it may not have helped much, but it was there.

Every time another cacophony of freshly minted lunacy was unleashed - lunacy regarding Iraq, the NSA domestic surveillance program, White House defiance of subpoenas, timorously flaccid performances by the Congressional majority, or merely when enduring the repeated "nukyalur"-ized butchery of public political rhetoric was required by my employers, all of which emphatically pegged the needle on my Pandemoni-O-Meter - I had that joke to tell myself.

The joke is spherically terrible, i.e. bad in every possible direction in three dimensions and across 360 rounded degrees. It isn't even a joke, really, which may be why it went so abruptly and bewilderingly sideways on me months ago. The joke, to be embarrassingly honest, is more like some half-bright mantra than anything else. As I came to discover, however, it managed to settle my mind when the needle was in the red. Perhaps the thing is best described as my self-generated Zen koan; though it did not actually stop my mind in proper koan fashion, it kept me from putting my head through the wall, and that made it valuable indeed.

The joke: people say Bush and his people want to raze the core nature of the country itself by wrecking the Constitution, and they're correct. People say Bush and his people are enriching their friends beyond dreams of avarice at our actual expense, by way of war-inflated oil prices; war-captured Iraqi oil infrastructure; the orgiastic plunder of Treasury money through calamitously unsound tax cuts for Bush's pals; and through an Iraq war profiteering scam so unutterably corrupt that it bends the very light. That, and more besides, is what people say, and they're correct.

for the rest of the article (Which is excellent) http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/091907R.shtml

Kerry obviously not for free speech

In his "Winter Soldier" speech, Kerry asked the following: We are here to ask, and we are here to ask vehemently, where are the leaders of our country? Where is the leadership?

So, where was Kerry's leadership when the student who was merely asking questions, and exercising his free speech rights, was tasered? He was there, he saw it and yet, he did nothing to stop it. He could have. Shame on you Senator Kerry. You saw, you continued to talk, and ignored that fact that someone's right to free speech was taken away from him. Then, you later issued a statement that you did not know what was going on. Are you blind? You saw, and yet you did nothing. I guess it's more fun to be a fat cat Senator, than it is to remember how to be a leader, and to uphold the constitutional right to free speech.

This is disgusting to watch, but it needs to be seen. We are entering a world were fascist tactics are apparently ok, even when witnessed by a US Senator who once asked where the leadership was. Well, Sen. Kerry you are part of that leadership, and you decided to ignore rather than lead.

This Week on the Daily Show

MONDAY 9/17 -- Douglas Farah -- Author, Merchant of Death (Repeat Episode)

TUESDAY 9/18 -- Alan Greenspan -- Former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, author of "The Age of Turbulence"

WEDFNESDAY 9/19 -- Gen. Wesley Clark -- Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, author of "A Time To Lead"

THURSDAY 9/20 -- Bill Clinton -- Former U.S. President, author of "Giving"

This Week on the Colbert Report

MONDAY 9/17 -- Ed Begley Jr. -- actor, leads totally green existence (repeat)

TUESDAY 9/18 -- Surprise guest; and Susan Sarandon, actress, "In The Valley Of Elah"

WEDNESDAY 9/19 -- Naomi Wolf -- author, "The End of America"

THURSDAY 9/20 -- Jeff Toobin -- author, "The Nine: Inside The Secret World Of The Supreme Court"

and in other news, not cooking related

Sorry folks, I was under the spell of rhubarb!
This news almost made me toss my rhubarb:
Gingrich plots revenge on Clintons--Firebrand Republican threatens last-minute White House run to end primary 'chaos' - and stop Hillary.

Looking for peace march news? Here you go....

Coverage of the peace march in DC on Sept. 15 was non existent, locally.

Here is what I found:
China News:
Tens of thousands of protesters stage the first anti-war protest in the U.S. capital of Washington since January on Saturday, demanding an end to the Iraq war.

Sydney Morning Herald:
A MARCH by thousands of protesters demanding an end to the Iraq war turned chaotic near the US Capitol, where hundreds sprawled on the ground in a symbolic "die-in", and police arrested almost 200 people, including war veterans.

Police used a chemical spray against some protesters and pushed back others who tried to jump a barrier in a self-described effort to be arrested. The "die-in", on a walkway in front of the Capitol building on Saturday, was generally peaceful until scores of protesters were arrested when they tried to climb over metal fences and a low stone wall.

Russia Today:


Houston Chronicle:
Anti-war Texans join Capitol protest
Smaller group of counterprotesters lined the sidewalks
WASHINGTON — Charlie Jackson, a 48-year-old anti-war activist from Austin, waved the Texas state flag in front of the White House on Saturday to rally opposition to the Iraq policy of the Texan who lives inside.

"What we're trying to do still is to end this war. We've got to keep the pressure up in Washington, in El Paso, in McAllen. We've got to do it until we get this thing stopped," said Jackson, a technology firm executive and the founder of Texans for Peace.

Rhubarb in Texas?

Yes, they had rhubarb at the HEB! Hurrah! So today's project was pie. The heck with all the problems in the world, I was bringing a slice of my roots (Newfane, NY) to my grandchildren today. We made PIE !

Amana Ox Yoke Inn's Rhubarb Custard pie, to be exact.

• 5 1/2 cups chopped rhubarb


• 2 1/2 cups Sugar


• 4 each eggs; lightly beaten


• 3/4 cup half and half


• 3/4 tablespoon flour


• 1/8 tsp Salt


• double crust pastry for 9 inch pie

1. Make crust for a 2 crust pie.


2. Put bottom crust in pie pan; sprinkle with 3/4 tsp flour. (I used 3/4 tbsp in error, but it turned out beautifully).


3. Mix the rhubarb, sugar, beaten eggs, half and half and salt.


4. Bake at 375 for 1 1/2 hours.


5. Contributor: Ox Yoke Inn, Amana, Iowa


6. Yield: 8 servings

http://www.grouprecipes.com/17543/amana-ox-yoke-inn-rhubarb-custard-pie.html

Greenspan Admits Iraq War About Oil

Finally, what we all have known from the beginning will be made public. The war in Iraq is all about oil. The new book by Alan Greenspan will be in the stores tomorrow in which he 'bluntly declares the Iraq war was largely about oil'. It feels good to finally be on the same page as Alan Greenspan! And especially to be able to say so....out loud! THE WAR IS ALL ABOUT OIL!
This article in the Observer/Guardian also brings up the 1.2 people who, according to an Iraqi survey, have tragically been killed in this unnecessary war.
“The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World" is not too kind to the current president. Mr Greenspan treats Bill Clinton more kindly, whom he described in his book "as a sponge for economic data who maintained a consistent, disciplined focus on long-term economic growth.”
A somewhat related aside: On Tuesday, the Fed is expected to lower interest rates in an effort to keep the collapsing housing market from doing any more damage to our economy.

W's Presidency Predicted 87 Years Ago

Tonight Keith Olbermann reminded us all of H.L. Mencken's words from the Baltimore Evening Sun on July 16, 1920:

"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

I doubt the brilliant Mr Mencken could have ever imagined our moron and the death and destruction he would bring.

9/11 Musings

I still wonder, where was all the luggage and debris in Shanksville and at the Pentagon? A recent crash somewhere (I forget where exactly) with a plane plunging into the side of a mountain left debris, engines, tail parts, wing parts, etc. The pictures gruesomely pulled me to examine them closely. It was as I expected, and not what we saw after 9/11. I have questions, that are unanswered, just like a lot of other people. Today, I read Lionel's post on Air America, and it struck home.

Here is an excerpt. If you have time, please go to the link and read it through.

9/11 SIX YEARS LATER & THE OBFUSCATION OF FACTS THANKS TO THE SO-CALLED CONSPIRACY THEORISTS
by Lionel on September 11, 2007 - 8:04am.


Six years ago today the 9/11 conspiracy theorist was born. Translation: the tin foil hat-wearin’, full-fledged, Elvis is alive, Area 51, Loch Ness Monster, crop circle nut case. The idiot, the crazed loon who would dare think that either (a) the government or a contingent thereof was somehow involved in 9/11 either by letting it happen or making it happen (the LIHOP and MIHOP theories that I don’t care to explain) or (b) the full account of what happened that beautiful Tuesday morning is at best incomplete. I’m in the latter group.

And while our country’s history is replete with references to lies that enabled us to enter into war, viz. the sinking of The Maine, Pearl Harbor, the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, not to mention miscellaneous acts of varying terrorism from the JFK and RFK assassinations, Watergate and the impeachment of the greatest President in my lifetime for giving in to the advances of a zaftig fellatrix, I realize that anything is possible but there just simply isn’t any credible evidence that this administration was involved in any acts attendant to 9/11 including the favorite theory of a controlled demolition.

Link to article

Conservatives Thinking Less Complex

I remember reading years ago that Republicans are unable to see more than one side of an argument, that they actually do suffer from 'tunnel vision'. Liberals, when presented with an opposing view, will consider it and say, "You might be right, let me think about it". Conservatives are unable to reconsider anything. There is now more research available, proving my memory correct.
A newly reported study finds that conservatives are more rigid in their thinking, "less tolerant of ambiguity and less open to new experiences". To be fair, the study also finds that extreme ideologues on both right and left can be equally rigid in their thinking.
link

Ray McGovern on Petreaus today

With the microphone finally fixed, it quickly became clear. Petraeus tried to square a circle in his very first two paragraphs.

In the first, he thanks the committees for the opportunity to “discuss the recommendations I recently provided to my chain of command for the way forward.” Then he stretches credulity well beyond the breaking point—at least for me:

“At the outset, I would like to note that this is my testimony. Although I have briefed my assessment and recommendations to my chain of command, I wrote this testimony myself. It has not been cleared by, nor shared with, anyone in the Pentagon, the White House, or Congress.”

Is not the Commander-in-Chief in Petraeus’s chain of command?

As Harry Truman, D-Missouri, would have said, “Does he think we were born yesterday?”

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/091007a.html#When:06:45PM

This Week on the Daily Show

MONDAY 9/10 -- Jeff Garlin -- Actor, "I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With"

TUESDAY 9/11 -- Jodie Foster -- Actor, "The Brave One"

WEDNESDAY 9/12 -- Robert Draper -- Reporter, author of "Dead Certain"

THURSDAY 9/13 -- Douglas Farah -- Author, "Merchant of Death: Money, Guns, Planes, and the Man Who Makes War Possible"

This Week on the Colbert Report

MONDAY 9/10 -- Bjorn Lomborg -- author, "Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide To Global Warming"

TUESDAY 9/11 -- Garrison Keillor -- author, "Pontoon: A Novel of Lake Wobegon"

WEDNESDAY 9/12 -- Joel Klein -- NYC School Chancellor

THURSDAY 9/13 -- Ed Begley Jr. -- actor, leads totally green existence

New Gallup Poll: A Feeling Thermometer

The folks at Gallup came up with a new poll: Warm, cold, neutral or never heard of. Barrack Obama wins the highest warmth honors, with Giuliani, Clinton, Edwards and McCain not far behind. Hillary wins among Democrats, by a large margin. The really amazing thing about the poll is the number of candidates some people have never heard of. They must be the same people who think Bush is doing a good job and the war is going well.
The poll has a lot of graphs and there is a lot more to it, so go take a look.

This Week on the Daily Show

Repeat Episodes.

New episodes return Monday, September 10!

TUESDAY 9/4 -- Alan Weisman -- Author, "The World Without Us"

WEDNESDAY 9/5 -- Sen. Barack Obama -- 2008 Presidental Candidate

THURSDAY 9/6 -- Lt. Col. John Nagl -- U.S. Army Lieutenant Commander, author ofThe U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual