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... when (about) a million marchers protested the then-President's plan to invade Iraq, the media seemed to mostly characterize the protesters as "naive", or "unrealistic".
Today, when what actually appears to be a lot less than a million protesters are showing up at "Town Hall" meetings, the media seem to conclude that this is a complete hindrance to the current-President's major initiative.
Why? What causes them to take such a different view of the disputes?
There's also some criticism of President Obama for putting forth different rationales for his Health Care Plan. This, I've read, completely discredits the entire plan. Unlike, of course, then-President Bush's continuous floating of different trial balloons as reasons he should be allowed to invade Iraq. My own favorite was the assertion that the cost of patrolling the No-Fly Zones (something like $55 million/year) was simply too much for the DoD budget to bear! At any rate, the then-President finally struck paydirt with his claim that Iraq had WMD, which got the public scared enough to believe the absolutely unsubstantiated assertion, and logrolled the Congress, not a group noted these days for their Profiles In Courage. So, Bush got his way. Ending up wasting a few trillion dollars and creating a permanently destabilized and ungovernable Iraq in place of the 55 million dollars a year and a permanently disabled but stable Iraq. To say nothing of the numberless dead.
By comparison, today's major issue, health care reform, doesn't seem important to the people who haven't had to think about their own future.
I myself am endlessly thankful for the government's Socialized Medical Care program. Without Medicare, I'd have to keep working until I finally dropped dead - or figure out some way to get filthy rich. This only to have some way of paying for medical care if something should happen.
Sometimes a Picture Really Is Worth A 1000 Words!
nil nisi bonum"
But, sometimes there are exceptions. It's Official now: Michael Jackson is even more annoying dead than he was when he was alive.
Or perhaps it's the sleazy operators who look at a dead celebrity and see $$$ signs.
"By George - I think he's got it!"
Apparently, according to the 'usual sources' - all of which seem to be more about promoting some particular point of view than actually reporting anything real - the President is willing to cave and discard what's become known as the " Public Option" in health care reform. My question: Does this mean that the people currently insured under the already-existing "Public Option" (aka Medicare) are going to have their insurance cancelled?
"The agency (Medicare) provides health insurance to 98 million people, pays 1.2 billion claims a year and has an annual budget of more than $700 billion. It has a pervasive influence on medical care, regulating hospitals, doctors, health plans, laboratories and almost every other type of health care provider. When Medicare decides to cover a new treatment or adopts a new payment policy, private insurers often follow its lead." ("Lack of Medicare Appointee Puzzles Congress"; New York Times, August 17, 2009).
Or will the current Medicare recipients be grandfathered, as it were? If Medicare is cancelled, what's going to happen to those niney-eight million people? Most of 'em probably can't get, or can't afford, private insurance. Heck, the private insurance companies didn't want them to begin with; that's why they let the government create Medicare in the first place. So they could charge an arm 'n a leg to insure the healthy, and then turn them over to a tax-supported system when they started to need expensive health care.
A caution: when people have to loot their childrens' education funds, hock the house, risk bankruptcy, all to provide medical care to Granny, who is now without insurance, those currently mythical Euthanasia Chambers out behind the local hospital are going to start looking like a good idea.
On the plus side: the Medicare Trust Fund won't be running out of money.
On another plus side: the George W. Bush Medicare Prescription Drug (Company) Benefit, dedicated to shelling out the greatest possible amount of tax dollars to Big Pharma, won't be giving your tax dollars away, either.
Saved From Socialized Medicine! Thank God Almighty! Also Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Fox "News", et. alia.
"Palm Pre phone secretly used GPS to report user's location to company". (Los Angeles Times, August 13, 2009). This appears to be in support of the company's alleged "great user experience."
Yes, according to software developer Joey Hess, his mobile phone has been reporting his whereabouts to "Palm Inc."; likely a CIA shell corporation aiding in the TIA(Total Information Awareness) program. Imagine what it must feel like - being stalked by your own phone! Of course, that is probably exactly what is going on in your case as well, though perhaps your phone is reporting to a different "Company". After all, as Dick (Undisclosed Location) Cheney and Don (Remember Him) Rumsfeld would say, it's a part of the "Freedom Experience" that's the birthright of every American Citizen.
Just how we came by this annoying euphemism "User Experience", an offshoot perhaps of Bill Gates' "Compute Experience" I cannot say. But it does seem a little... umm... racy. Is a "Phone Experience" perhaps something like a "Sheep Experience", or maybe a "Donkey Experience"? Really, I'd rather use a phone than have an experience with it. Though it does look a bit as if some people are "Going Steady" with their phone. Almost to the point where it might be appropriate to suggest that they "Get A Room".
In any case, while not wanting to appear in any way speciesist, I think I'd prefer to confine my "Experience"s to friends of the Human persuasion. or at the outside, at least to the Class Mammalia
I really don't understand why some people are having trouble with the argument being put forth by the "Birthers". Here's how the argument goes. Lets begin with the -
First Premise: Barack "Hussein" Obama can't possibly be the President of the United States. That's quite clear. I mean, just look at him! He's Black! (In case you hadn't noticed) Actually, not very black, but black enough. More like Colored, maybe. Anyway, he's not at all like all the presidents we had before. (He's also intelligent, which really means he's "Uppity).
Therefore: He must not be qualified to be President.
Consider: the requirements to be President (from Article II, Section 1; Executive Power): "...No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States."
Thus: Barack "Hussein" Obama is NOT a "natural born citizen".
QED.
Note: I personally have No Comment with regard to the First Premise. It's noticeable that most people begin by believing what they Want To Believe, and proceed from there, in a sort of Reverse Drunkard's Walk to the necessary premise.
Footnote: A friend of mine from Britain exclaimed to me that he believed Americans to be the most ignorant people in the world. I demurred. I believe that Americans are quite ordinarily ignorant. It's just that they have so much greater scope for their ignorance. A larger canvas than others, so to speak. A bigger wall for the shit to stick to.
Orwell Was Right! "War is Peace", apparently, at least to some Department of Defense (Hah!) and some Military-Industrial Complex folk. The amusingly-labelled "Threat Reduction Agency" is scoping out the possibility of making the world's biggest-ever bomb - although not the 9.5 million kg size mentioned by the semi-literate and an-metric writer and editor of this article: Pentagon eyes accelerated "bunker buster" bomb. Now there's threat-reduction for you!
Yes, George Orwell proves once again to have been a prophet of modern man.
Reminds me of a graffito I saw on a toilet wall once (in a Navy Club, unsurprisingly): "Support Mental Health Or I'll Kill You".
I do appreciate self-referential, or Orwellian, irony. Helps me keep my apocalyptic view of humanity fresh and growing.
