Readers…

Hey Everyone,

I’m posting a bunch of e-mails I’ve gotten from people who have things to say from global warming to the domestic issue of healthcare reform.

Global warming is my “thing.” As for effective organizations, I like the Union of Concerned Scientists, the National Resource Defense Council (NRDC), Rainforest Action Network to name a few. There are a number of good ones. Follow up on previous email…. One of the sticky wickets for people who are concerned about global warming is that both studies and experience show that the “catastrophe” narrative exhausts and overwhelms folks into putting their heads in the sand. Feeling helpless, they decide to believe the fossil-fuel-funded deniers and not worry about it, or, buy a compact fluorescent light bulb and feel like they have done their part. 

This reader recently went to a conference on the subject and I’ve asked her to write a post detailing the newest science. Hopefully, we’ll get that soon.

And on healthcare reform:

Here are some links for you to post regarding the Bill HR676:
http://www.healthcare-now.org/

And this is a summary of the bill:

The United States National Health Insurance Act (Expanded and Improved Medicare
for All Act) (H.R. 676), is a bill submitted to the United States House of
Representatives by Representative John Conyers Jr., D-MI, which as of March 31,
2009 has 74 recorded cosponsors. It was first introduced, with 25 cosponsors, in
2003,[1] and reintroduced each session since then. The act calls for the
creation of a universal single-payer health care system in the United States, in
which the government would provide every resident health care free of charge. In
order to eliminate disparate treatment between richer and poorer Americans, the
Act would also prohibit private insurers from covering any treatment or
procedure already covered by the Act. The bill is currently in the House Energy
and Commerce Committee, as well as the Committees on Ways and Means, and Natural
Resources. John Dingell (D-MI), former chair of the Energy and Commerce
Committee, has each session introduced a bill with a similar title (“National
Health Insurance Act”) H.R. 15, which was first introduced in 1933 by his
father, John Dingell, but which does not provide for universal health care.
H.R. 676 has drawn significant attention beginning in July 2007 because of the
release of the Michael Moore documentary Sicko which focuses on the status of
health care in the United States, which is the only developed country which does
not have universal health care.[2][3] The DVD edition of the film also included
a segment (Sicko Goes To Washington) promoting the bill.[4][5][6]
[edit] See also
• Canadian and American health care systems compared
• Health in France
• Health care reform
• Healthcare in the United Kingdom
• Healthcare-NOW!
• Medicare (United States)
• Progressive Democrats of America
• Single-Payer Action Network Ohio
[edit] References
1. ^ H.R. 676
2. ^ Insuring America’s Health: Principles and Recommendations, Institute of
Medicine at the National Academies of Science.
3. ^ The Case For Single Payer, Universal Health Care For The United States,
John R. Battista, M.D. and Justine McCabe, Ph.D.
4. ^ American Health Care Reform.org
5. ^ Towards Universal Health Care
6. ^ Universal Health Plan is Endorsed The Boston Globe August 13, 2003
[edit] External links
• H.R. 676 – Information on the act from the Library of Congress Database
• Congressman John Conyers, Jr., sponsor of the bill, official U.S. House
website
• HR676.org – A grassroots effort to inform the public about H.R. 676
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_National_Health_Insurance_Act
Categories: Healthcare reform in the United States | Medicare and Medicaid
(United States) | United States proposed federal legislation                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 In regards to the markets it was always my original feeling that there would be the major crash and then another bookend crash. My biggest fear is that Obama is just helping to reconstruct the same market that crashed and not enough is being done to fundamentally change it for the better. If the game is played the same way, with the same rules and the same mistakes it will just fall to its knees over and over until it is eventually restructured. I hope President Obama is just trying to stabilize things until he can get in there and do the surgery needed to really make the markets work. Those changes are pretty radical by wall street standards and would require not just major regulations and rule changes but also require companies to play by the same rules every other US citizen plays by: for example, if I can’t move to France than why can IBM move to China? Why should they (if they are a US company) be able to move jobs anywhere that’s cheaper. I’d like to live somewhere cheaper and make a higher profit too. Can I stop paying taxes, put my money in Swiss banks and move to France legally? No. So why can US companies ship jobs overseas? Why isn’t making butt loads of money good enough? This notion of constant growth is not only a falacy but dangerous. It is driving this bizarro world new economic model and basically its aim seems to be to turn the world back to a feudal peasant vs. royal class. This is causing so many other dominoes to fall like the reliance on a middle class that these corporations need in order to stay in business. They are actually driving us all into the poor house and themselves out of business because no one is willing to look long term at the big picture. And this mentally has also driven us to the state we are in with healthcare and global warming and nearly every other mess we’ve gotten ourselves into. It’s time to think long term and stop the crazy squirrel disease that has been eating away at the capitalist brain for the past 30 years. Ethics and morality have to come back into play in regards to business. That old expression “it’s just business,” is just b.s. Nothing can be separated out like that, everything is connected.

Best wishes and many blessings to all you good super brilliant people (check out IQ poll results pretty impressive group I must say),

Denise

P.S. I read a study that said people with high IQs and highly educated people were more likely to believe in psychic ability. Interesting, it was opposite of what most people would assume. I think its because the more you know, the more you know you don’t know anything, and you also can understand when someone takes a leap past logic that they couldn’t possibly have done without something else unexplainable by ordinary means.