Health Insurance Deals The Three Card Monte Game

Let me add some math and street savvy to Dennis The Menace’s fantastic remark (provided in BuelahMan’s post here). Private health insurance is *identical* — INDENTICAL — not *like* not *analogous* not *I’m being clever* — to a street-corner 3-CARD MONTE GAME.

For anyone who is not familiar with the game here’s a tutorial on the hustle with the cards themselves as the “crew” (*insurance company*) would set up business and lure you in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2kO_5cNF5k&feature=channel

Let’s say, though, that the insurance company, like a 3-Card Monte crew, is subject to law. Let’s say that what they’re doing with the sleight of hand weren’t legal at all, even though it is. Let’s say they were merely doing their best to throw the cards speedily and you’d take a shot at guessing where the winning card was. If you had average eyes and were comfortable in the hustle and bustle of a New York City or Buenos Aires or Lima or London street corner (which MOST Americans very much aren’t — they’re either White, scared or both), you’d pick the winning card 1/3 of the time.

Fair enough. You are being paid EVEN money in a game in which you are a 2/1 underdog. I’ll spare the boring calculations of this and get right to the math of it. You are being paid 50c for every insurance claim when you should be paid 67c. The insurance company, knowing everything about you, acting in a completely forthright manner, not even charging outrageous deductibles is making 17% return on their money. Any business which can do that in volume is going to be very, very, successful. To make 17% a year, every year, puts a totally honest business in the upper tier of success.

Now, how can the insurance company, even acting honestly, just playing the odds, guarantee these kinds of profits? Easy. They have something you all should have, but either don’t bother getting or don’t have or don’t care about. These are called “actuarial tables”. Here’s an example of an older one that the Social Security uses:

http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/NOTES/as117/as117.pdf

Here’s a more general link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_table

So, insurance companies know more about you based upon your risk profile than you know about yourself. That’s just insurance companies doing honest business and playing the odds. Even when they have to make major payouts on claims or a lot of minor ones, those have been figured in, and they’re making way more off all the healthy people who don’t make claims. Deductibles add a tremendous amount to the profit % of insurance companies, making their expected return behaving honorably now around 22%.

Insurance companies don’t behave honorably. They cherry-pick healthy people. They question and delay every claim. They intimidate and duck and dodge, knowing they have the full support of the government plus they have the best lawyers on the planet and YOU HAVE NOTHING. You are not David fighting Goliath. You are an ant fighting Goliath. You make a legitimate claim. They accuse you of insurance fraud — a custodial felony — what the fuck are you going to do about that? Can you pay a top class lawyer $700/hour to DEFEND you?

I write this as someone who understands math and capital markets intimately. I consider myself an economic conservative but social and foreign policy left-wing extremist. I’ve been hustling with math my entire life and I’m well-off. Yet, both my social left-wing extremism and my economic conservatism inform my belief that free, high quality, guaranteed, single-payer health care is the best option for the individual person and family as well as the economy. The long-term success of an economy (see Robert Solow, economist, on this)is determined mostly by the return to the society’s “unit of labor.” This means a society’s economic success is dependent on having the most productive, healthy, educated, safe, responsible, and creative workforce. In this environment, everyone gets richer.

In the UNFRIENDLY/FRIENDLY FASCIST “President” BushBaManuel Cheney reverse Robin Hood imperialist state, the richest 1000 Americans get much richer. The richest 500,000 Americans get somewhat richer. And it all comes out of the remaining 299,400,000 pockets because of rackets like “for-profit” insurance.

(Posted on kelso’s behalf by BuelahMan: taken from the comments section of the linked post and added because it was so Damned Good, hope that’s ok, bro’)

What He Said!

Joe Biden’s “Sovereign” Double Standard

Michael Jackson: Contrasting Opinions

I have been lax in saying much about Mr Jackson. I have only highlighted a few performers here (generally my music preference or some local group or friends who play/sing/whatever and the occasional redneck crazy shit). At my root, I am a white redneck man who liked pop music as a very young lad, but grew out of it in my last year or two in high school. So, the past 30 years or more, I have not been a fan of his.

However, one way I worked my way through high school and college was as a DJ and I was doing this when Thriller came out. Believe me, hearing it a thousand times is enough to make it grow very old, very fast. Having it requested four hundred times in a night (and playing it because they would get pissed if I refused)  is not my idea of enjoying music. So, not only was it not my favorite kind of music, I had to hear it over and over and over and over… until I was sick of it. I welcomed Kool Herc, Melle Mel and Run DMC over the sickening pop and worse, Disco (if I was forced out of my love, R&R). BTW, I hate today’s country music with a passion.

But, then again, remember my roots. I love Rock and Roll, especially southern Rock and Roll. Sue me.

Zep, Floyd, Aerosmith, Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, 38 Special, etc were what I ended up listening to and relating to the most.

Back to Michael: as a kid (he was just a few years older than I), I liked the Jackson 5 very much. I remember their cool clothes and their ability to sing and dance together. And Michael was a phenom, that cannot be doubted. But look what it did to him: what his life caused him to do to himself and how damned weird he got. Maybe it is to be expected when you are worshipped as if you are Jesus Christ Mohammed (Michael changed his religion from Christianity/Scientology to Islam), as I understand it.

He had a lifelong pursuit of changes to his body that caused me to first question his sanity. The nose thing, not so bad (until it went too far), then cheeks, chins, bleaching his skin then lying about it. He started become much more effeminate, making me wonder if he was transgender (or considering it).

All I am saying is that a little multi-talented kid seemed to be changing himself on purpose and I never understood why. It is one of things that turned me off from him and his music, even though I still consider him immensely talented and gracious. In so many words, he became a freak and I wonder if it was him trying to please the audience and fans, moreso than trying to be himself (at least, so it seems to me). And don’t get me started on having kids in bed with him (pedophile or not, that shit is wrong).

I have a good friend (RawDawgBuffalo) who wrote from a perspective that I do not have and another new friend at The Heroes of America that takes a totally different perspective, which is really the purpose of this post. I want to examine the extremes of this man and how it influenced people into taking such radically different views of Michael.

From RawDawg:

Michael Jackson was not just the average entertainer, he was the case for exception for he was an indescribable talent that was encompassed in the form of the great singer and showman and dancer – without a doubt he was the best. For people such as me, it is impractical to accept his death and describe the loss of such a creative genius for I was born under his influence. It was first through the blue labeled Motown record 45′s that I would play on my component set as a kid, and later through television, where I remember the first time I saw him and his brothers outside the covers of Ebony and Jet Magazines on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1969. I can still lucidly see that purple Brim he wore while moving fluidly to the music while he and his brothers sang “One More Chance”.

…

His adventures were well documented for it seemed as if main stream media had a problem with not being able to predict or explain his actions or behavior. But such has been the tradition of a mainly Eurocentric press when dealing with successful and well know black men. Jackson knew this and felt it every day regardless of such attention being justified or not. From his personal friendships with Elizabeth Taylor and Diana Ross to his first failed marriage with Lisa Marie Pressely, to his admiration for a Chimpanzee named Bubbles that he dressed like himself, he only attracted questionable press from the main stream media.

Once while attending the Grammies, he took two dates: Brook Shields and the child star Emmanuel Lewis. Some speculate that this was what brought the extreme scrutiny to Jackson and his fondness of young male children. Anything Jackson said or did was ground for a feeding frenzy for the press. He was taunted for his self comparison to Peter Pan, the multiple corrective and cosmetic surgeries he had performed on his face with respect to his nose and skin and his attempt to purchase the bones of the famous Elephant Man in 1987. It is strange that these tend to be what is spoken about mostly, and how people forget the fire that burned him doing the filming of a commercial for Pepsi, or how his first surgery was conducted to repair a broken nose after he fail from the stage in 1979.

The persecution was so extreme that Jackson left the Jehovah’s Witness and reportedly joined the Nation of Islam under the leadership of Minister Farrakhan. Maybe it was all the attention. The civil suits and criminal allegations of child molestation that led to what may have increased the stress on his heart. I will not go into his supposed dependency and addiction to prescription pain killers for the main stream media has ridden that wave to the shore and beyond.

I think it is apparent (you should read the entire thing, btw) that Torrance loved and respected this man. I can understand how this would be true for him.

Personally, I have never been able to “love” a performer… to be able to connect with them on such a level. Maybe I am just a hard ass, I dunno. But I do understand, somewhat, RawDawg’s feelings and how they developed.

So, when I read another viewpoint, I am torn, because I did not love Michael in the same nostalgic way and see more of a tormented soul than anything else.

From The Heroes of America:

A couple days ago, all the major networks were airing the funeral of Michael Jackson. This funeral, the funeral of a rock star – and not that of a great world leader, a Nobel prize winning scientist, or world famous writer – is considered of such paramount importance as to warrant interruption of all other broadcasting. Obviously, the funeral of John F. Kennedy in 1963 would be considered of such importance – but the funeral of a rock star? It almost appears insane to anyone who thinks journalists should focus on important matters effecting society. Why this crazy orgy over the death of a man (or transgendered person) whose music represented dish-watery pop culture? Because Jackson was more than just the “King of Pop”, he was also the “King of Identity Politics”.

Michael Jackson’s life and death unfolded almost entirely on the public stage, and it was a stage of tragedy. A sensitive, introverted child, he was brutally mistreated by his father and constantly thrust into the glare of the public spotlight. Jackson never had a chance at developing beyond that childhood. He truly lived the life of Peter Pan, a perpetual childhood until his death.

One thinks of the tens, perhaps hundreds, of millions of dollars of his great wealth that Jackson could have given to major universities, performing arts centers he could have funded for talented yet needy children – not unlike the Michael Jackson who grew up in Gary, Indiana. Instead, all the money was wasted on choo-choo trains and multi-million dollar pieces of furniture. His mind was unable to search beyond the world of the playground and see the rest of society that lay outside.

Therein lies the real tragedy. For the perpetual little boy also desperately wanted to be the “image” of society. He became part-white, part-black, a boy, a girl, transgendered, gay and straight all rolled into one. Society is all about “Identity Politics”, and he would be the great child king of “Identity”. He would try to be it all, to literally be everyone, even if it killed him in the end…

I am torn. I am torn because a huge talent and a loving heart was transformed into something he truly was not at his heart (at least, imo). The “freak” was only a freak in perception of those (like me) who do not understand how and why someone could do this to themselves. But when one has a remembrance like Dawg’s and the understanding of what Michael went through as a black child star- turned mega Star, it causes one like me to truly wonder who the man was. Was he what he appeared to be?

I doubt it.

I bet he was the same guy I remember with the ‘fro and could sing like no one else. Not the weirdo who bleached his skin and changed himself into another totally different person.

Rest in peace, Michael. The real Michael.

Tell Me How Much You Love Your Health Insurance Company

Is it this much?

h/t Earth2Obama

On a side note: America squandered the best chance it had when they allowed the Media and the Democratic party to exclude this man from the POTUS race. Suckers.

B’Man’s Patriot Watch: True American Heroes… IVAW

They are among us. Show them you care. Visit their site and watch their testimony. These are America’s finest heroes.

This Is Where We Take Our Stand

more about “This Is Where We Take Our Stand | Aft…“, posted with vodpod

http://thisiswherewetakeourstand.com/

This Is Where We Take Our Stand

Where’s the debate?

Are we watching passively while Barack Obama carries out the same policies as George W. Bush?

When an American bombing raid this May killed over two hundred civilians in a village in Afghanistan, it was met with a deafening silence. When Obama’s promised “withdrawal” from Iraq leaves 130,000 troops there for at least two more years and 50,000 permanently, it’s hailed as an end to the occupation. And who is demanding to know just what the mission really is when 30,000 more troops are sent to Afghanistan?

Where’s the debate?

In March of 2008, two hundred and fifty veterans and active duty soldiers marked the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq by gathering in Washington, DC, to testify from their own experience about the nature of the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. It was chilling, horrifying, and challenging for all who witnessed it. Against tremendous odds, they brought the voices of the veterans themselves into the debate. That was then.

This is now.  Today, we present to you This is Where We Take Our Stand, the inside story of those three days and the courageous men and women who testified. And we present this story today, told in six episodes, because we believe it is as relevant now as it was one year ago. Maybe more.

Here is our challenge to you: Watch the series; spread it far and wide; and ask yourself is this about the past, or the present and future. Then add your voice.

If you are a veteran or active duty, present your own testimony. If you are not, but you are still a living, breathing member of the human race, then do whatever you can to join and fan the flames of debate.

Displaced Films and Northern Light Productions

h/t AfterDowningStreet.org

B’Man’s Wicked Garden Update: We Have Peas, Coffee and Spice

Morning Coffee

Coffee Joe Cool Swing

How’s about a little spice with your trombone?

Trombon Con Sazon

Cross-Posting Of My Latest From THE DAILY PITCHFORK: File under Admiral Fallon, Latin America, Switzerland and FRIENDLY FASCISM

AMERICAN TRAITOR WATCH: ADMIRAL WILLIAM J “FOX” FALLON

http://thedisbrimstone-dailypitchfork.blogspot.com/2009/07/american-traitor-watch-admiral-william.html

“FATHERLAND” JONES?

Will Corruption Cross the Line?

By Andrew Becker   |   Mother Jones   |   July 7, 2009

A van stuffed front to back with nearly 6,000 pounds of marijuana ran out of gas as it headed toward the Paso Del Norte border crossing and an inspection lane manned by Margarita Crispin, who was sentenced in April 2008 to 20 years in federal prison for helping drug traffickers. PHOTO: Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General, El Paso

The rumors about Margarita Crispin started soon after her first day as a customs officer in El Paso, Texas. In March 2003, Crispin started working the line at the Paso Del Norte bridge, across from Ciudad Juárez. Nearly one-fifth of all drugs seized coming across the border enter through the El Paso-Juárez area, and the region is viciously contested by Mexican cartels. So when Crispin waved off the dogs that sniff out drugs in the long line of cars waiting to enter the United States, saying she didn’t like them around her, it raised a few eyebrcows.

Corruption among border agents is nothing new. But what makes Crispin’s case different is that investigators from the Department of Homeland Security suspect she’d been recruited by a friend with ties to the Juárez cartel before she took the job. Almost immediately after completing her training and putting on her badge, she began to help traffickers “cross loads.” As many as three vans stuffed with drugs would pass through her inspection lane several times a week. By the time she was arrested in July 2007, Crispin is thought to have let more than 2,200 pounds of marijuana into the United States. In return, DHS agents say, she received millions in bribes, much of which remains unaccounted for. Last April, she pled guilty and was sentenced to 20 years and ordered to forfeit as much as $5 million, plus jewelry and a truck.

At least two other recently arrested agents are suspected of being drug cartel plants. And as Customs and Border Protection continues its biggest hiring surge ever, investigators see infiltration as a growing threat. By this fall, CBP expects to have more than 20,000 agents, twice what it had in 2001. “We’re seeing fewer reports by agents of being approached by traffickers,” says James Smith, special agent in charge of the DHS inspector general’s El Paso office, which investigates corruption and misconduct cases. “We’re not just seeing disgruntled employees going bad. We’re seeing more cases where agents are already employed by the drug-trafficking and alien-smuggling organizations before they go to work for CBP.”

Speaking Spanish is a required skill for agents, and many have family and other ties to Mexico. Though agents are subjected to extensive background checks, it is a challenge to indentify red flags in applicants’ personal histories or connections across the border. Since the agency began giving polygraph tests to potential hires last year, investigators have found four applicants planted by the cartels. Still, they’re concerned that others may have already slipped through.

Some officials worry that the screening program may not be able to keep up with the pace of recruitment. But James Tomsheck, CBP’s assistant commissioner for internal affairs, says the agency hasn’t cut corners. Rather, he thinks the increased risk of cartels’ penetrating its ranks is an unintended consequence of the successful efforts to secure the border with fencing and more agents. “The threat, as it emanates from the cartels, is a real one,” he says. “Our concern is, what is it that we don’t know? Who is in our workforce that we have not yet detected?”

This article appeared in the July/August 2009 issue of Mother Jones. Andrew Becker is a CIR staff reporter.

MY ANALYSIS FOLLOWS:

This piece of “investigative” journalism is a perfect example of how far MOTHER JONES has drifted from it’s original purpose as a periodical meant to document the struggle for labor rights and equality in America.  It was named after Mary Harris Jones and I can’t swear to this hypothetical obviously but had Mary Harris Jones read this article in a magazine named after her, she’d be sick to her stomach.

The article is wholly supportive of the BushBaManuel “War On Drugs” which is an essential part of the imperialist domestic social control and foreign imperialist FRIENDLY FASCIST state.

What immediately strikes the reader is that the villains in the story are a Latina border guard, varied and sundry unnamed Mexican drug cartel bosses, and varied and sundry American Latino Spanish speakers! The heroes, of course, are the brave, intellectually superior (presumably White non-Spanish speaking) agents of the Department of Homeland Security.  I had to read this piece three times over just to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating.

Secondarily, one notices that no other border guards, Mexican-Americans, or Mexican-Mexicans, perhaps with dissenting opinions are interviewed for even a fig-leaf of balance.  What’s also missing is any reference to Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s request of President Obama that he (Calderon) be allowed to  experiment with a drug decriminalization policy in an attempt to STOP CORRUPTION AND VIOLENCE among all sectors of Mexican society, including and especially among his police force, prosecutorial service,  and judiciary.  This request, of course, was laughed at, brushed-off, and a stepped-up US military, para-military and law enforcement effort INSIDE MEXICO named un-ironically “Plan Mexico” was implemented.  I’d bet Mexican sources would have plenty of stories to tell of the corruption of Homeland Security officials inside and outside of Mexico.

With an attitude — and history http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Jones_(magazine) — like this from MOTHER JONES, I feel very uncomfortable writing in to complain for fear that the putzes at MOTHER JONES would put my name on some DHS list.  So, I’ll do my complaining here and at THE PITCHFORK, thank you very much.

In conclusion, I am wholly comfortable in proclaiming that MOTHER JONES is the functional equivalent if not worse than  NATIONAL REVIEW.  In fact, NATIONAL REVIEW  is much better in my estimation.  It often has well-written, occasionally amusing, pieces though equally antithetical to my worldview as this trash in MOTHER JONES.  And I know if I read NATIONAL REVIEW I might get American Exceptionalist Authoritarian Imperialist propaganda, but I’ll never have to wade through bullshit New Age and Woo-Woo articles as credulous of superstition as any Fundamentalist religious weekly might be.

UPDATE: The author of the piece apparently is a real anti-Latino bastard. http://www.centerforinvestigativereporting.org/projects/noticetoappear

Don’t be fooled by some of the pretty-sounding headlines.  Read the stories and the meaning is plain.  Latinos are vermin and the Mexican government is trying to ruin America

It Is Time To Demand Truthful Answers To 9/11

Jim Marrs

h/t DeProgram

I wrote a blog post about the Pentagon “attack” and included video comparing all the eye witnesses’ accounts to the official report (which is totally destroyed by these interviews). In that particular video, the focus was on exactly where the Jet was seen that day and its path towards the Pentagon. The witnesses all said something contrary to the report, which in and of itself, may not be enough to cause concern. But in lieu of that information and then the fact that the so-called “pilot” of that 757 couldn’t even fly a Cessna 172 or pass an automobile driver’s test or even speak English after being here for 10 years (which is a requirement for an US Commercial Jet Pilot’s license).

Mark H Gaffney wrote an article for Information Clearing House which was also posted at World Prout Assembly. In this article, Mark examines all the contradictory media claims about Hani Hanjour’s piloting abilities: first suggesting he must have been trained militarily, but then after further review of all the many flight schools he attended in the US (being kicked out of some for being such a bad pilot), finding that he sucked as a pilot and was confused by the cockpit simulator of a 737 (which is less difficult to fly than the 757, as many Commercial Airline Pilots have come forth to say).

Ironically, The 9/11 Commission had contradictory things to say about his skills, as well. In one instance claiming he couldn’t fly well and in another instance saying he was the best of all the hijackers. They then leaned on the ONLY testimony they could find that would support Hanjour’s great flying abilities, when there are countless others saying different. That he could not fly at all.

Essentially, after you remove the single story you see below, there is not another “witness” that makes the same claim. Funny how the only person to claim Hani Hanjour could fly is an Israeli and not a single American made the claim. Funny how he can’t be found today for questioning when his is the sole rationale for the theory to move forward.

You should read the entire article, but if nothing else, take this away from it for this is the lie caught red handed:

How the FBI and 9/11 Commission Suppressed Key Evidence about Hani Hanjour, alleged hijack pilot of AAL 77

So, Who is Eddie Shalev?

The record compiled by the FBI for the purpose of to authenticating Hani Hanjour’s flight skills fails to provide convincing substantiation. Notice, for this reason it also fails to support the testimony of the other flight instructor, Eddie Shalev, who certified Hanjour to rent a Cessna 172 from Congressional Air Charters just three days after Marcel Bernard, the chief instructor at Freeway, refused to rent Hanjour the very same plane. The 9/11 Commission Report makes no mention of the incident at Freeway airport, nor does it discuss Eddie Shalev, other than alluding to Hanjour’s certification flight in a brief endnote. This is curious, since it now appears that Shalev’s testimony was crucial. By telling the commission what it was predisposed to hear, Shalev gave the official investigation an excuse to ignore the preponderance of evidence, which pointed to the unthinkable.

So, who is Eddie Shalev? His identity remained unknown for more than seven years, but was finally revealed in one of the files released in January 2009 by the National Archives. The document, labelled a “Memorandum for the Record,” is a summary of the April 2004 interview with Eddie Shalev conducted by commission staffer Quinn John Tamm.[32] The document confirms that Shalev went on record: “Mr Shalev stated that based on his observations Hanjour was a ‘good’ pilot.” It is noteworthy that Tamm also spoke with Freeway instructors Sheri Baxter and Ben Conner, as revealed by yet another recently-released document.[33] Although I was unable to reach Tamm or Baxter for comment, I did talk with Conner, who confirmed the conversation.[34] Conner says he fully expected to testify before the commission. Perhaps not surprisingly, the call never came.

But the shocker is the revelation that Eddie Shalev is an Israeli and served in the Israeli army. The file states that “Mr. Shalev served in the Israeli Defense Forces in a paratroop regiment. He was a jumpmaster on a Boeing C-130. Mr. Shalev moved to the Gaithersburg area in April 2001 and was sponsored for employment by Congressional Air Charters…[which] has subsequently gone out of business.”

The memorandum raises disturbing questions. Consider the staffer’s strange choice of words in describing Shalev’s employment. What did Quinn John Tamm mean when he wrote that Shalev “was sponsored for employment”? Did the commission bother to investigate Congressional Air Charters? It is curious that the charter service subsequently went out of business. But the most important question is: just how thoroughly, if at all, did the commission vet Eddie Shalev?Does his military record include service in the Israeli intelligence community?

Real people have known addresses. But the whereabouts of Eddie Shalev has been unknown for years. As reported by David Griffin, a 2007 search of the national telephone directory, plus Google searches by research librarian Elizabeth Woodworth, turned up no trace of him. A LexisNexis search by Matthew Everett also came up dry.[35] Recent searches by Woodworth and myself indicate that an “Eddy Shalev” resided in Rockville, Maryland as recently as 2007. However, the associated phone number is no longer in service. The 9/11 memorandum raises the possibility that Shalev may have returned to Israel. Clearly, the man needs to be found, subpoenaed and made to testify under oath before a new investigation, even if this necessitates extradition. Quinn John Tamm and the two Freeway instructors, Sheri Baxter and Ben Conner, should also be subpoenaed. All are key witnesses and obvious starting points for a new 9/11 investigation.

Given his identity, the search for and possible extradition of Eddie Shalev could become controversial. But 9/11 investigators must not be turned aside. We must follow the trail of evidence, regardless. Should it lead into a dark wood, we must resolve to go there; and if it takes us to the gates of hell, so be it. When our search obtains a certain critical mass, momentum will shift decisively in our favor. Public support for a new 9/11 investigation will become irresistible. The light of truth will do the rest.

Mark Gaffney is the author of The 9/11 Mystery Plane (2008). For more details check out Mark’s web site www.the911mysteryplane.com Mark can be reached for comment at markhgaffney@earthlink.net

Open Letter To The American People on Independence Day, 4th July

from Professor Mohammad Al-Ani, Chairman, Iraqi Consultants Council

Monday, 06 July 2009 01:43

On the 4th of July of each year, you celebrate your independence day, which you consider America’s most precious day, as it represents your freedom and true independence that you achieved by resisting British Occupation. You sacrificed for this day and fought for eight years to achieve your just aim, by simply refusing any kind of occupation and loss of true sovereignty.

Your country became the strongest nation in the world. But instead of spreading peace and freedom between mankind, your governments started to enslave nations economically in your name; punishment for anyone who does not want to be under your sphere of influence became the name of the game. This attitude was clearly crystallised when your government decided to break international law by invading Iraq under the disguise of weapons of mass destruction. But the whole world knows now the fallacy of this claim, and it has become crystal clear for all that the true aim is to have hands on control on the natural resources of Iraq. Your government believes that it has achieved this aim by imposing an ideologically polarized political system and constitution, and embedding wide spread corruption in the system, in order to reap the reward of controlling oil fields and other natural resources through false and orchestrated auctions.

But let me tell you what your country has achieved for you. Your government has committed the most evil act against humanity for the sake of controlling the resources of another nation in your name, in the name of your humanity and your civilisation. It tried to legalise this evil crime by initiating a so called treaty with the so called government of Iraq. History will Judge those Iraqis who signed, voted and who are quite about it as having committed high treason against the people of Iraq; it is simply an attempt to legalise the most evil act committed in the history of humanity. I do not mean the millions of orphans, or the millions of widows, or the millions of displaced people, or the crimes committed by your military army against detainees, or the destruction of Iraq’s infrastructure. I mean the use of the American military of at least 2000 tons of depleted uranium in the war against Iraq, which has polluted more or less all aspects of the environment in my beloved Iraq.

Depleted uranium is the true weapon of mass destruction, especially the way its pollution affects all aspects of normal life, land and water. To find out the true effect of this weapon, go and visit what ever is left of Iraqi hospitals; to see with your own eyes the crimes of your government and military. This inhumane weapon has caused wide spread cancer especially in women and children, and even unborn foetuses and genes. Yes it will affect genes for ten and probably hundred of years to come. An if you can not visit Iraqi hospitals, visit the hundred of thousands of your own veterans who are suffering from long term illnesses caused by depleted uranium according to the reports of your own institutions. That is correct; your government has even committed hideous crimes against your own soldiers.

You need to stop this hypocrisy of yours. On your independence day, I would like to remind you that resisting occupation is the right of all free people in the world, and it is the right of the people of Iraq to resist your occupation and hijacking their true sovereignty. You are not aware of the true losses Iraqi resistance has inflected on your military. The findings of your own academics and research institution indicate that the causalities are as high as half a million dead and disabled veterans with terminal illnesses. This is what your government has achieved in this unjust war on the people of Iraq as a result of the actions of the heroic Iraqi resistance. As to the so called withdrawal of the US military from Iraqi cities and towns and the charade of handing over sovereignty, I can assure you that free Iraqis are all too aware of this deception and will not be deceived by it. Free Iraqis will continue their resistance until all foreign troops are withdrawn from Iraq, and gain true independence and sovereignty. Just like their grandfathers in the last century who fought British rule until they gained independence. In order to know the willpower and tenacity of free Iraqis, read about the twenties revolution, as your future generations will read about the war of the twenty first century.

You must understand that the people of Iraq will not forgive you until you apologies and compensate justly for all the crimes and damages your government and military have committed again the people of Iraq and their environment. You can rest assure that if you do not, Iraqi people including future generations will hold you legally accountable for these crimes to gain a just compensation even after independence.

Lastly, I say to you that your country is less than two hundred and fifty years old. But the cradle of civilisation in Mesopotamia is thousands years old. This free land went through trials and tribulation from time to time over the centuries, but it has always regained its freedom and independence at the hands of its free sons.

Professor Mohammad Al-Ani
Chairman, Iraqi Consultants Council
4th July 2009

h/t World Prout Assembly

The new chicken or the eggs story

video:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8139232.stm

By Fergus Walsh
BBC medical correspondent

Scientists in Newcastle claim to have created human sperm in the laboratory in what they say is a world first.
The researchers believe the work could eventually help men with fertility problems to conceive.
But other experts say they are not convinced that fully developed sperm have been created.
Writing in the journal Stem Cells and Development, the Newcastle team say it will be at least five years before the technique is perfected.
They began with stem cell lines derived from human embryos donated following IVF treatment.
The stem cells had been removed when the embryo was a few days old and were stored in tanks of liquid nitrogen.
The stem cells were brought to body temperature and put in a chemical mixture to encourage them to grow. They were “tagged” with a genetic marker which enabled the scientists to identify and separate so-called “germline” stem cells from which eggs and sperm are developed.
The male, XY stem cells underwent the crucial process of “meiosis” – halving the number of chromosomes. The process over creating and developing the sperm took four to six weeks.
Understanding sperm
The Newcastle team say the sperm were fully mature, mobile sperm and they have produced a video to back up the research.
Professor Karim Nayernia at Newcastle University and the NorthEast England Stem Cell Institute says: “This is an important development as it will allow researchers to study in detail how sperm forms and lead to a better understanding of infertility in men – why it happens and what is causing it.
“This understanding could help us develop new ways to help couples suffering infertility so they can have a child which is genetically their own.
“It will also allow scientists to study how cells involved in reproduction are affected by toxins, for example, why young boys with leukemia who undergo chemotherapy can become infertile for life – and possibly lead us to a solution.”
However, Professor Nayernia stressed the researchers had no intention of “producing human life in a dish”.
Perfectly viable human embryos have been destroyed in order to create sperm over which there will be huge questions of their healthiness and viability
Josephine Quintavalle
Comment on Reproductive Ethics

But Dr Allan Pacey, a sperm biologist at the University of Sheffield, said he was not convinced the sperm were fully developed.
“The quality of the images is not of sufficiently high resolution and I would need more data. They are early sperm, but functional tests would be needed to know exactly what has been achieved.”
The sperm cannot be used for fertility treatment as this is prohibited under UK law. The scientists in Newcastle say it will be at least five years before the technique is perfected – when they believe it should be available to help infertile men.
This research also raises ethical issues. Josephine Quintavalle from Comment on Reproductive Ethics (Corethics) said: “This is an example of immoral madness. Perfectly viable human embryos have been destroyed in order to create sperm over which there will be huge questions of their healthiness and viability.
“It’s taking one life in order to perhaps create another. I’m very much in favour of curing infertility but I don’t think you can do whatever you like.”
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Man playing G-d… never a good ending..

Summer of Love 40 yrs strong!

I attended this wet-field -party with a young man named Marty. I remember waking up in the rain and listening to “here comes the sun”…lol. I love this little story– so I wanted to post it. Ya’ know— a happy post. lol

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/music/2009/07/07/2009-07-07_woodstocks_undercover_lovers_.html

Barack Obama’s REAL Employer Is NOT You

He is owned and controlled by Goldman Sachs (among the other bank rollers of his campaign and POTUS win).

Do not think, for even a second, that he represents you in any way,  form, or fashion. He represents Big Money. Period.

Cenk, let me explain this just one more time… Americans are still gullible and naive. You, sir, are still naive because you still defend Obama against Bush. There is so little difference between these two people on the subjects that matter that it is difficult watching you suck up to Obama. It is like watching a lapdog lick his Master’s balls… embarrassing and ugly.

There is hardly anything he is doing right. Stop that stupid shit, Cenk, and wake your dumbass all the way up. Get out of that stupor you are in. Get that hot babe to slap the shit out of you, if that is what it takes.

Stop praising that fucker for the little shiny object that gathered your attention and swooning worship. Stop continuing the two party meme, when there is no real delineation between the two parties.

You are smarter than this and it is high time you wake up.

h/t Unspy

Even Right Wing Latin America teaches the US about human rights and rational drug policy (maybe)

A terribly violent place, Colombia, 2nd only to Israeli in US aid, but like Israel, its city people in re the UnFab Four, are not great fans of Obama who has increased funding for a whole new US Military base as an a essential tool in fighting the “War On Terror” and the “War On Drugs,” via Plan Colombia.

[NB: By "UnFab Four" I refer to the choices Israeli citizens got in the last elecition: Ehud Barak (Labour-Zionist), Tzipi Livni (Kadima-Zionist), Avigdor Lieberman (Yisrael Beitenu-Sociopathic Zionist), Binyamin Netanyahu (Likud-Extreme Zionist). As I've noted in these pages, Ms Livni, the "peacenik" of the major party candidates, won the popular vote, but the union of the other two, Barak and A. Lieberman, with Netanyahu in Israel's parliamentary coalition system, the sum of those totals trumped Livni's.  So, Netanyahu is PRIME MINISTER. Lieberman is FOREIGN MINISTER.  Barak is DEFENSE MINISTER.  Livni, absolutely pro-war and pro-Zionist, is now OPPOSITION LEADER! Having lost the battle for Labour Party leadership, the strongest anti-Zionist, pro-Peace candidate, Ami Ayalon, has been given the glorious title of "MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFORLIO".  Which is transliterated from the Hebrew to mean "Go fuck yourself."]

Colombia, like Israel, is a big client-state which receives a lot of US aid, has many US military bases, and uses USA Plan Colombia money to pay Ultra-right wing extremist para-militaries to crush the emerging trade union movement in the cities and suburbs as well as the rural grange movement. Colombia’s brutal labor, rural and indigenous policy is known in elite circles in the Uribe and Obama governments as “fighting dangerous FARC communist terrorists.”

As bad as Colombia is, it is a little ahead of Israel in terms of democratic systems, and  Colombia is far ahead of the United States culturally and in terms of basic human rights policy.

Let’s take two issues of “controversy” that make President Obama nauseous to deal with: LGBTQ rights and drug-policy.  This is what’s going on in Colombia on those fronts:

Housing Departing Of Social Services Grants Subsidy To First Gay couple This would be like a sub-secretary of Kathleen Siberlius publicly celebrating a human right held by Big Samma’s LGBTQ community in defiance of her boss, President Obama. Execept it was no problem for Sub-minister Andres Podlesky, because “right-wing” President Uribe supports the full-palette of LGBTQ rights and is yet another country in which same-sex marriage is a right by notary seal under Colombian contract law. What would happen if some JOKER tried that in Big Sammy: Obama boots her or him and probably Sibelius, as well. Wait a second. Didn’t un-Progressive Secretary Of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton, kind of like DO THAT?

Mario Iguaran, the Attorney General of Colombia,  is hardly the most “enlightened” law-enforcement principal in the world (although the Colombian system of criminal sanction is downright Woodstockian compared with that of the US.  President Uribe (Conservative-Bogota) and President Obama have rebuffed the efforts of opposition leaders Senator Ms Piedad Cordoba (Partido Liberal-Bogota),  Chairman Sr Carlos Gaviria (Alternative -Medellin) and former President and former Chair of Organzation of American States Cesar Gaviria (Liberal-Peirera) to hold any discussion or referenda on drug decriminalization.

President Felipe Calderon, facing a wave of violence and corruption because of its status as the main way-station for processed cocaine between the Andes and the rest of the world (25% goes to the USA), tried the same approach with Obama.  Nice try, Sr Calderon, but I’m afraid you got USA “Plan Mexico” from Obama instead.  Nice write-up on this by JOE THE STONER: AN AMERICAN POTHEAD.

http://joethestoner.blogspot.com/2009/04/mexican-ambassador-us-should-take.html

This could be a battle-royal between AG Irguran and President Uribe. The subject of Fiscal vs.Uribe: official decriminalization of small (small is BIG in COL!) amounts of drugs for personal use.The Atty Gen’l like Piedad and both Gavirias want this. President Uribe not so much.

What would happen to Eric Holder if he tried this? Saturday Night Massacre. Three more would have a chance to be Eliot Richarson, but not the lesbian DoJ official-appointee-minus. Dawn Johnsen. She’s a lesbian, you see, and someone has put a hold on her. Obama refuses to appoint her during recess. Christ, agent of not change but the funny stuff, anyway, that if if you define “funny stuff” as being a fraidy-cat homopobe.

Rational drug policy, desire for LESS internal violence, and LGBTQ rights.  In BushBaManuel’s Amerkkka, these ideas which have majority acceptance throughout the rest of the capitalist, self-governing, democratic-republican-parliamentary world, are too “controversial” for immediate action by “agent of change” Barack Obama.

I happen to think that Obama’s policies are beyond “controversial.”  They are the policies of George W. Bush but slightly harsher.

Obama’s policies are fucking nauseating.

Demnow-DemocracyNowFridayJuly32009631

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Kelso’s Nuts love you

Prepare Yourselves For The Dollar To Crash and Burn

Things are getting close, folks. I have said several times on this blog (and others) that there will come a time when the US Dollar will lose its place as reserve currency and the trading vehicle in the world of finance. The American exceptionalism thing will cause most of you to shrug and ask, “So what?”

So, what will happen? We will find that the moment this happens, we will find our economy in a swan dive from a mile high cliff. The indicators have been around for a while (and I am sure that kelso can give specifics), but suffice it to say that when the big players in the world begin to sell off their Dollar investments and force the world into some other currency for trade, we will not be prepared for the devastation that will follow. We have basically destroyed our manufacturing in the US and have become so heavily military focused that the knee-jerk reaction will be for Americans to try and find work in a missile factory, et al. Or building ships (the largest employer in Mississippi is military, as I understand it).

Keep an eye out on these countries and this particular person (this man, Jim Rogers, foresaw the current bubble bust and did something about it… moved out). Jim is readying to sell off his dollar holdings.

We already know that China and Russia are pushing for the same.

But now we have India, who is a huge trading ally (and military ally), questioning the US Dollar Dominance:

Suresh Tendulkar, an economic adviser to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, said he is urging the government to diversify its $264.6 billion foreign-exchange reserves and hold fewer dollars.”

The major part of Indian reserves is in dollars — that is something that’s a problem for us,” Tendulkar, chairman of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, said in an interview yesterday in Aix-en-Provence, France, where he was attending an economic conference…

Singh adviser Tendulkar said that big dollar holders face a “prisoner’s dilemma” in terms of managing their holdings. “That’s why I’m telling them to do this,” he said.

He also said that world currencies need to adjust to help unwind trade imbalances that have contributed to the global financial crisis.

“The major imbalances which led to the current situation, the current account surpluses and deficits, have to be addressed,” he said. “Currency adjustment is one thing that suggests itself.”

It is really quite evident that it is all falling apart. Yet, we have Americans who glibly move along as if there is nothing wrong, or worse, defeated into believing that nothing can be done.

Let me tell you what can be done, at least from an elected representative standpoint:

First and foremost, we need a referendum to change the way elections are financed and conducted in America. No more electroal college bullshit.

Secondly, vote out of office, each and every corporately owned congressperson. Anyone who has received campaign finance from banks, telecom, military, etc, should lose their jobs immediately. Anyone who votes with their campaign finance interest in mind and not those whom they represent need to go post haste.

Third, Limit terms to 2. Period.

Fourthly, either force Congress to purchase their own health insurance or go Single Payer across the board, force them to invest in their own retirement, instead of being paid their full salary for the rest of their lives (even if having only served one term), force them to pay INTO Social Security, stop their ability to vote in their own raises and force them into observing and upholding the same laws that we, normal Americans, are made to uphold.

Fifth, MAKE them balance the budget. We simply cannot afford the $1T annually for overseas bases that are unnecessary and the cause for most of the back lash we have been receiving for many years. If the shoe were on the other foot, I guarantee things would be seen differently (say, if China had bases all over North and South America).

(BTW: many of these ideas are seen in a video shown at Not Another CONspiracy)

We have a small window of opportunity left before it is too late. If you are still asleep, forgive the intrusion, but we are just a gnat’s ass away from devastation.

UPDATE:

Washington’s Blog links to an article that shows where France, the 5th largest economy in the world, is now calling for an end to the Dollar dominance. Just like dominoes, here come the rest of the world’s countries…