;)
The Commentariat -- January 9, 2013
My column in the New York Times eXaminer is on David Brooks' latest pack o'lies.
You will want this guy on your side:
... Charles Pierce prints Hagel's entire 2002 speech on the Iraq War Resolution. As far as I can tell, video of the 2002 speech is not available on the Internet. ...
... Pierce profiled Hagel in 2007. ...
... Juan Cole: "Top Ten Reasons Chuck Hagel Should Be Secretary of Defense."
Elections Matter. Norm Ornstein in The New Republic: "... the Senate has a core of assertive, brainy liberals greater than we have seen in decades.... The new liberal base has a slew of people who remind me of their predecessors in their passion, intelligence, persistence, and, for many, grasp of how the Senate works.... This group of strong-willed and ideologically determined liberals will not be pushovers for President Barack Obama and the policies of his administration. However it works, the infusion of new talent combined with seasoned veterans makes the 113th Senate a new and dynamic vessel for liberal aspirations."
M. J. Lee of Politico: "Former Rep. Barney Frank says it was the year-end standoff over the fiscal cliff that prompted him to seek an appointment to John Kerry's Senate seat and then to go public with hopes for his next career move."
Jeffrey Jones of Gallup: "An average of 47% of Americans identified as Democrats or said they were independents who leaned Democratic in 2012, compared with 42% who identified as or leaned Republican. That re-establishes a Democratic edge in party affiliation after the two parties were essentially tied in 2010 and 2011."
Jonathan Chait of New York: Washington's "centrist deficit drones ... are merely performing the opinion journalism equivalent of wishing passersby a Merry Christmas.... If you look closely at [their writings], they uses phrases like 'solve problems' and 'reduce the deficit' almost interchangeably.... When figures like Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson are invited on to programs like Meet the Press, they are treated as disinterested wise men rather than political advocates.... David Gregory ... does not question their own ideas.... All believe unswervingly that the solution to the long-term deficit requires both parties to move to the center.... Obama's negotiating position is exactly the same as the centrists." ...
... CW: I think Chait is exactly right & Paul Krugman is full of shit when he flatters himself like so: "Does anyone doubt that the White House pays attention to what I write?" Krugman claims he is more influential as "an outside man" than he would be as Treasury Secretary. I don't see where he has had much, if any, effect on the Obama-Geithner twins.
Money is the creation of the state. -- John Maynard Keynes
Here's Krugman, BTW, again on the trillion-dollar platinum coin: "What the hysterics see is a terrible, outrageous attempt to pay the government's bills out of thin air. This is utterly wrong.... In practice minting the coin would be nothing but an accounting fiction, enabling the government to continue doing exactly what it would have done if the debt limit were raised.... So minting the coin would be undignified, but so what? At the same time, it would be economically harmless -- and would both avoid catastrophic economic developments and help head off government by blackmail." CW: Now, Paul, try to explain that to Sen. Rand Paul. The Rand Pauls are the real reason Krugman would not go to Washington, if invited. (Also, the reason he would not be invited.) ...
... ** Joe Weisenthal of Business Insider: "In order to have a 'serious' debate about fiscal policy, as so many pundits claim to want, we must first understand what money is, and how governments get it.... The answer is that they have always created it, and any notion of the government 'running out' are illogical. Remember, money is a fiction. Real wealth is capital assets, our infrastructure, our cars, our houses, and most importantly the potential human ingenuity and cooperation. Money is just something that the government creates to facilitate the trade in all of those things. The #MintTheCoin debate, more than any other fiscal debate we can remember, gets right to this matter." Read the whole post. ...
... Ryan Cooper of the Washington Monthly: Law Professor Laurence Tribe says minting a trillion-dollar-coin is clearly legal under the statute & to do so would not be exploiting a "loophole"; the statute clearly places no limit on the value of coins to be minted under its terms. ...
... Ed Kilgore on the "moral" assumptions of deficit-hawkery: "... scratch a deficit hawk, and you will often very quickly find a disdain for the 'indiscipline' of debtors, of those who insufficiently save, of those who aren't as prudent and responsible as the deficit hawk. The interesting thing about the platinum coin proposal is that it flushes all those sentiments right out into the open where they can be addressed head on." ...
... Krugman again: "The money morality people are basically adopting a pre-Enlightenment attitude toward monetary and fiscal policy -- and why not? After all, they hate the Enlightenment on all fronts. The bottom line is that we aren't really having a rational argument here. Nor can we: rationality has a well-known liberal bias." ... CW: this is a polite way of saying that conservatives are ignorant, superstitious, narrow-minded martinets forever caught in a Medieval time warp. I don't like to make sweeping generalizations, which are usually unfair, but most elite members of the conservative movement are just Louie Gohmerts with better manners & diction.
Carl Hulse of the New York Times: "As she begins her second Congress as leader of the opposition in the House, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California is confident that Democrats will get behind President Obama on the big clashes with Republicans. But she thinks the president should aggressively line up much wider support for raising the federal debt limit and enacting new gun rules."
Yo, Erskine. The Centrist, the Orange Man & the Turtle Have Already "Come Together" to Reduce the Deficit. Suzy Khimm of the Washington Post: "... the Jan. 1 fiscal cliff deal represented just one portion of the deficit reduction that's been going on since 2011. The Center for American Progress calculates that President Obama and Congress have successfully enacted $2.4 trillion in deficit reduction since the beginning of fiscal year 2011, which began in September 2010. About one-quarter of that comes from revenues (primarily the fiscal cliff deal) and almost two-thirds from spending cuts.... That doesn't count the 10 months of the sequester that are scheduled to take effect on March 1...." ...
... Update: here's the original Center for American Progress piece -- from which Khimm takes her figures & charts -- on deficit reduction. It's in plain English.
Jason Langes of Reuters: "The U.S. Congress should accept in the next round of deficit-reduction talks that revenue from taxes must be raised further if it expects President Barack Obama to sign off on a deal, the president's top economic adviser, Gene Sperling, said in an interview" with Reuters.
Capitalism as Dark Comedy. David Atkins of Hullabaloo on AIG's possible "Thank you, America. Now we're suing your ass": "What's most appalling ... is ... that everyone is behaving as modern capitalism demands. AIG 'innovated' financial products to meet shareholder expectations of quarterly profits as the market demanded. When those products went belly up, the government couldn't let AIG go bankrupt without destroying the entire economy. With AIG back on its feet due entirely to government largesse, the faceless, soulless corporation is once again doing its job in attempting to maximize value to its shareholders. Everything is working exactly as the system is designed to, actually. And it will keep working this way until we overthrow it in favor of a new system that doesn't prioritize short-term profit over long-term stability, corporate persons over real persons, and shareholder return over wage growth."
Dear American Taxpayers: ... Oh, and as for our ad campaign, 'Thank you, America'? We’re sticking with that, just changing the first word. See you in court. -- Your friends at A.I.G. Via Andy Borowitz ...
Some People Are Just Not Amused: Taxpayers across this country saved AIG from ruin, and it would be outrageous for this company to turn around and sue the federal government because they think the deal wasn't generous enough. Even today, the government provides an ongoing, stealth bailout, propping up AIG with special tax breaks -- tax breaks that Congress should stop. -- Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)
Warren is sponsoring a citizens' petition urging Congress "to end AIG's ongoing bailout and special tax status. Enough is enough." ...
... Ben White & Anna Palmer of Politico: Washington's reaction to AIG's possible suit against the government has been fast & furious.
New York Times Editors: "In the face of widespread evidence of illegal foreclosure practices, federal regulators in 2011 told the big banks to investigate themselves.... Not surprisingly, after spending an estimated $1.5 billion on consultants, the banks have found little wrongdoing and provided no meaningful relief. Equally unsurprising, regulators will let the banks off with a wrist slap for their failure to execute credible and effective reviews.... For the new settlement to have any credibility, regulators must appoint an independent monitor with full authority to oversee, analyze and publicly report on the deal's enforcement."
Simon Dumenco of Ad Age: "Facebook doesn't just screw users with its shifty privacy practices; it also engages in shifty (if technically legal) tax-dodging practices. Just before Christmas, Britain's The Guardian newspaper reported that Facebook uses a byzantine accounting technique called -- no kidding -- the 'Double Irish' to drastically minimize its tax burden. Basically, 'Facebook is structured so that companies buying advertisements ... anywhere outside of the U.S. have to pay Facebook Ireland.' Through a complicated series of maneuvers involving royalty payments and transfers to the Cayman Islands, Facebook Ireland is then able to report a huge loss, 'despite it accounting for 44% of the social network's revenues.' Per Business Insider's math, that means Facebook paid just $4.64 million on its entire non-U.S. profits of $1.34 billion for 2011 -- an effective tax rate of 0.3%." CW: I really resent major media outlets forcing me to utilize Facebook, which itself is forcing me to cover its tax obligations. Here's a truism you can "take to the bank": Billionaires are assholes. (Yeah, yeah, Warren Buffett.) Thanks to Mushiba for the link.
Julie Pace of the AP: "... Vice President Joe Biden is meeting at the White House with victims groups and gun-safety organizations. Wednesday's meeting is to be part of a series of gatherings Biden is conducting this week at the White House, aimed at building consensus around proposals to curb gun violence.... The vice president will meet Thursday with the National Rifle Association and other gun-owner groups. Meetings with representatives from the video-game and entertainment industries are also planned."
Heidi, You're Not in North Dakota Any More. Sam Stein of the Huffington Post: "The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence will run advertisements in the Washington publications Politico and Roll Call in addition to North Dakota newspapers, calling out [Sen. Heidi] Heitkamp [D-N.D.] for criticizing comprehensive gun control reform. 'No parent should have to send their children to school wondering if they will come home,' the ad reads. 'Shame on you, Senator Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) for telling the country on Sunday that the Obama Administration's response to Newtown -- which may include universal background checks and a ban on assault rifles and high-capacity ammunition magazines -- is "extreme."'" Includes reproduction of the ad. Also text of a mealy-mouthed response from Heitkamp's office.
Jim Acosta of CNN: "A staunch supporter of gun rights for years, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid may be changing his position on the contentious issue in the aftermath of the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.... 'He's in a different place than he was in 2010,' [a Reid] adviser told CNN."
Pete Yost of the AP: "A defence contractor whose subsidiary was accused in a lawsuit of conspiring to torture detainees at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq has paid $5.28 million to 71 former inmates held there and at other U.S.-run detention sites between 2003 and 2007. The settlement in the case involving Engility Holdings Inc. of Chantilly, Virginia, marks the first successful effort by lawyers for former prisoners at Abu Ghraib and other detention centres to collect money from a U.S. defence contractor in lawsuits alleging torture. Another contractor, CACI, is expected to go to trial over similar allegations this summer. The payments were disclosed in a document that Engility filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission two months ago but which has gone essentially unnoticed."
Inauguration
Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times: "On Wednesday the president's inaugural planners will announce that [Cuban-American poet Richard] Blanco is to be the 2013 inaugural poet, joining the ranks of notables like Robert Frost and Maya Angelou." Stolberg profiles Blanco.
Katie McDonough of Salon: "The historic Washington National Cathedral will soon begin performing same-sex marriages. The church will be among the first Episcopal congregations to offer the marriage sacrament to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender members.... Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, decided in December to implement marriage rites to reflect the new law allowing same-sex marriage in the District of Columbia and Maryland, but each priest in the diocese will be allowed to decide whether or not to perform same-sex unions."
Ronen Bergman interviewed Israeli President Shimon Peres for the New York Times Magazine. For some reason, the interview took place six months ago & is just being published now.
News Ledes
New York Times: "The country is in the grip of three emerging flu or flulike epidemics: an early start to the annual flu season with an unusually aggressive virus, a surge in a new type of norovirus, and the worst whooping cough outbreak in 60 years. And these are all developing amid the normal winter highs for the many viruses that cause symptoms on the 'colds and flu' spectrum."
New York Times: "Military prosecutors preparing to try Pfc. Bradley Manning said on Wednesday that they would introduce evidence that Osama bin Laden requested and received from a Qaeda member some of the State Department cables and military reports that Private Manning is accused of passing to WikiLeaks."
ABC News: "After two days of apparent indifference, accused Aurora shooter James Holmes smiled and smirked at disturbing self-portraits and images of weapons shown in court today, according to the families of victims who watched him."
AP: "The Obama administration says it might leave no troops in Afghanistan after December 2014, an option that defies the Pentagon's view that thousands of troops may be needed to contain al-Qaida and to strengthen Afghan forces. 'We wouldn't rule out any option,' including zero troops, Ben Rhodes, a White House deputy national security adviser, said Tuesday."
New York Times: "The Iranian government is behind hacking attacks on major American banks, according to government security experts."
New York Times: "For Boeing, much rides on the success of its newest and most sophisticated jet, the 787 Dreamliner. But a spate of mishaps is reviving concerns about the plane's reliability and safety."
New York Times: "An element of the New York Police Department's stop-and-frisk practice was deemed unconstitutional by a federal judge on Tuesday, a ruling that may have broad implications for the city's widespread use of police stops as a crime-fighting tactic. The decision, the first federal ruling to find that the practice under the Bloomberg administration violates the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure, focused on police stops conducted in front of several thousand private residential buildings in the Bronx enrolled in the Trespass Affidavit Program."
Washington Post: "A military judge refused Tuesday to toss out the case against WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning but ruled that any sentence the Army private receives should be reduced by 112 days because of his mistreatment in confinement."
New York Times: "Australia on Wednesday was grappling with an unprecedented heat wave that has sparked raging bushfires across some of the country's most populated regions -- pushing firefighters to their limits, residents to their wits' end and leaving meteorologists tracking the soaring temperatures into uncharted territory."
Reuters: "India denounced Pakistan on Wednesday over a firefight in the disputed territory of Kashmir in which two Indian soldiers were killed, but the nuclear-armed rivals both appeared determined to prevent the clash escalating into a full diplomatic crisis.
Guardian: "Drones have taken centre stage in an escalating arms race between China and Japan as they struggle to assert their dominance over disputed islands in the East China Sea. China is rapidly expanding its nascent drone programme, while Japan has begun preparations to purchase an advanced model from the US. Both sides claim the drones will be used for surveillance, but experts warn the possibility of future drone skirmishes in the region's airspace is 'very high'."
AP: "Investigators picked through the wreckage Tuesday of a heavily loaded U.S.-owned cargo helicopter that crashed in the Peruvian jungle shortly after takeoff, killing its five American and two Peruvian crew members. The tandem-rotor Chinook BH-234 chopper, owned by Columbia Helicopters, Inc. of the Portland suburb of Aurora, Oregon, crashed Monday near the provincial capital of Pucallpa. It was under contract for petroleum exploration support, en route to a drilling location in northern Peru...."
AP: "Venezuela's decision to postpone the inauguration of President Hugo Chavez as he remains in Cuba battling cancer has prompted furious accusations from the opposition that the government is violating the constitution and should tell the country how ill the socialist leader really is."
Reuters: "- The Bank of Japan will consider easing monetary policy again this month and also perhaps doubling its inflation target to 2 percent, sources said, as the economy's weakness threatens to delay its escape from two decades of deflation. Any easing will likely take the form of another increase in the BOJ's 101 trillion yen ($1.2 trillion) asset buying and lending program, mostly for purchases of government bonds and treasury discount bills...."
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Reader Comments (17)
I refuse to log into Facebook. I am especially irritated when some other site requires me to log into Facebook in order to be able to access what I was seeking. If I can't get to what I want without logging into Facebook I just leave the site and do without whatever it was. There is nothing I want that badly and I will never give in. Thank you Marie for bring this subject up and providing a place to vent.
Late so only two quick thoughts.
On Facebook. I am not interested in what it seems to offer its users, but that's just me. Maybe I don't want to confront face to face how few friends I have (smile), but its tax avoidance schemes do interest me as another compelling instance of how incongruent our tax laws and our geographic borders are with the realities of business in a global economy. We worry about our porous borders to the extent of building hundreds of miles of physical fences to keep those brown people out, but we can't keep our jobs or the profits or the taxes businesses should pay on them at home.
The other thought, related. Agreed, a nation's wealth is its capital assets, and to the degree we privatize what is and was our common treasury, our school, our parks, our post offices, we are lessening the value of that part of us which we all own and which has made us collectively rich. I don't know what he had in mind when Bush II touted the ownership society--tho' I suspect I didn't like it-- but the more ownership in the private hands of the wealthy, the poorer the rest of us become. I do not know what effect that has on the value of the dollar, but I do know it doesn't do much for the value of a nation.
@Ken: Your last paragraph––expressed beautifully and exactly right.
I do take heart at our new Senate with "a core of assertive, brainy liberals greater than we have seen in decades". Perhaps––we'll keep our fingers crossed while signing their petitions.
I happened upon a piece last Sunday on Richard Burton's diary writings. Seems he was quite the writer. Here's something he wrote years ago, but has the ring of authenticity for today:
"The more I read about man and his maniacal ruthlessness and his murdering
envious scatological soul the more I realize that he will never change. Our
stupidity is immortal, nothing will change it. The same mistakes, the same
prejudices, the same injustice, the same lusts wheel endlessly around the
parade-ground of the centuries. Immutable and ineluctable. I wish I could
believe in a God of some kind but I simply cannot. My intelligence is too
muscular and my imagination stops at the horizon, and I have an idea that
the last sound to be heard on this lovely planet will be a man screaming."
I'm offended; you've been defriended; I refuse to list on Facebook because I have no use of its service. (but let me show you this cute pictures of my dogs dressed as ninjas). I just figure Facebook is todays Yellowpages; world listings. From what I have seen Facebook gives you the ability to connect with people you would cross the street to avoid in real life. But I'm old and have a few good friends and we talk in person or by phone.
If the new gens like it; I like it too. What's with the "like" thing? Like, I'm like, whatever, with the like word, like, care, about like. Or so I'm told.
"a nation's wealth is its capital assets, and to the degree we privatize what is and was our common treasury, our school, our parks, our post offices, we are lessening the value of that part of us which we all own and which has made us collectively rich." I agree and I'd like to add a comment.
A nation's number one asset is its people. The pervasiveness of our current materialism is front and center in the first sentence. I got to hang out briefly with some teenagers this past weekend and the radiant optimism of youth was a pleasure to watch.
The reason to retain public control of the treasure and schools and parks and post offices is they serve as a foundation for human assets to grow upon. The wealthy can afford the privatized version of all of the above and they would deny the masses the same. Barry O and his pollsters don't think that explicitly about equal access to government services.
I join the sentiment here about Facebook. No animosity toward those who use it and love it. Like Marie, I greatly resent having to "log-in" on sites to comment or access info so I avoid them. It just strikes me as another form of the 24/7 reality show. I'm pretty confident that my friends don't care when I change the toilet paper roll let alone its color, price or consistency. My family, visiting for Christmas, were continuously electronically tethered to Facebook and Iphones. I understood the generational phenomena for my niece and nephew, but then my sister-in-law lamented she only got 14 Happy Birthday Facebook posts and 5 tweets on her birthday (49 on 12/24).
Why don't those of you who use and enjoy Facebook pledge and suggest to all of your friends that they pledge not to patronize any of the advertisers who appear on your Facebook pages.
Seems to me there would be some irony if this went, what do you call it, viral on Facebook.
SCOTUS blog has a summary of the facts surrounding Missouri V McNeely, which is being argued before the SC today. It is an issue of drawing blood without warrant in every DWI arrest as there is already precedent for blood draw in specific circumstances. I understand that the results of this blood draw may result in a criminal conviction. Yes, I favor a warrant. Although I get that it is theoretically apples and oranges, isn't it amazing that the insertion of a foreign object in a woman's vagina for no medical purpose but rather as a compelled ideological probing exercise is not an unreasonable search?
http://www.scotusblog.com/2013/01/argument-preview-blood-tests-and-privacy
I don't know how, but I'm on some crazoid right-wing e-mail list and every now and then I receive stupendously stupid and alarming e-mails that are hailed heartily by most recipients.
With most of these you can practically smell the crayons and finger paint and I ignore them, declining any kind of response. But occasionally I get one that, not only because of its despicable nature but also because it comes wrapped in what seems to some, if you don't look too hard and if you've forgotten everything you learned in your history classes (and whatever moral training you received along the way), to be a perfectly reasonable response to what many on the right consider to be liberal excess and a gaming of the system by (mostly) poor women and blah people.
Today I read what purports to be the answer to all our problems written by a 21 year old woman from Texas as a letter to the editor of a Waco, TX newspaper.
It begins "If I were in charge..."
Among "her" suggestions for restoring the country to greatness is forced sterilization of any woman on assistance. These women should not be allowed to breed. They will also be forced to undergo routine testing for drugs, alcohol, and nicotine. No word about why men won't be tested or sterilized. Also no word about use of condoms or other less draconian forms of birth control.
Foodstamps will only buy blocks of cheese, 50 lb bags of rice and beans and powdered milk. No meat, no poultry, no fish, no vegetables, no fruit. I guess that'll show those lazy blah people. Also anyone on assistance will be moved into barracks. Their sleeping area will be inspected daily and they will be kicked into the gutter if everything is not Bristol fashion.
There are a lot more "ideas" but one in particular stood out alongside the forced sterilization.
No one on assistance will be allowed to vote. Why? Because that would be a conflict of interest. You see, blah people and those sterilized women will vote for candidates who will keep the good times rolling.
I won't republish my response to this bat shit crap (largely because everyone here has a working brain and understands why cheering for this kind of shit puts you smack dab in the middle of Stupid, USA) except for my disagreement with the denial of voting rights because of the conflict of interest they pose.
Who among us doesn't vote for our interests? Voters select candidates whose values seem to align with their own. They elect these people and they expect some return. They expect to "get" something, something that will benefit them either financially or ideologically. Is that a conflict of interest to vote for people who will allow you keep more money through tax breaks, for instance?
These types of diatribes usually come across, to most of their audience, as perfectly reasonable. The logic seems (if you're a fucking moron) to be unimpeachable and it mostly boils down to "Black people and other moochers and liberals are fucking us over and we need to break them on the wheel and show them that REAL Americans won't take their bullshit anymore." The sort of vicious stuff you can hear every hour of the day on right-wing sputum radio.
Finally, as you might have guessed, this wasn't written by any woman (although Ann Coulter probably could have penned it). It was written by an ex Army sergeant from Texas.
And the entire list was presented as "common sense" about how to fix the country.
My reason for bringing this up at all is to point out, if any further pointing out was needed, how deeply disturbed and out of touch so many Americans have become. Disturbed and disturbing. This kind of shit is passed around sub rosa among people who actually get to vote, people who call into PigFucker Radio and shoot spittle out of both sides of their mouths and diseased snot out their noses while declaiming on their "right" not to be bothered by people they hate.It's easy to pass this sort of thing off as racist ravings and laugh at it but there's so much of this going on that it makes it difficult to look the other way.
In the meantime, these nuts all out there looking to stockpile weapons before that Kenyan guy takes them all away.
The really scary thing is that there are quite a few people in congress right now who ARE in charge who agree with most or all of these sentiments. And they'll be returned to office by the racist scumbags who pass this shit along.
Elections ARE important.
So glad my fellow commenters agree with me about Facefuck! I joined last year at the behest of my nieces and nephews--and some of their children--as a way to "keep in touch." Well......if what they write on their Facefuck pages is their idea of "keeping in touch," I give up. I do not want any new recipes for chicken casserole. I do not eat chicken, and I dislike recipes. Nor do I want to hear about one of their friend's cool new "whatever." Or hear about how my niece (and namesake) has discovered Blue/Green Algae as a cure for everything. Yikes. After I read about how Facefuck is sending its money to the Cayman Islands, I defriended them pronto.
P.S. All I have ever posted on FF are petitions and rants about gun control, etc. Nobody has ever "liked" my posts, and I can't say I blame them, but I have posted a picture of my 3-legged cat--because he is a beautiful and rare creature. No "likes" on him either. This is a strange world, and I agree with every word Richard Burton said! Must be because my father was Welsh, and, like Burton, a rather cynical observer of the human race. That gene definitely got passed on to moi.
Re: we're goin' have a good time; We know it's your birthday, happy birthday to you; sister-in-law of Diane. Sure, it's a little late; but it's heart-felt. Sent from my me-phone while driving in traffic, drinking a cup of coffee and shaving.
It's the future that is going to kill us off.
The NIH asked the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine to submit a report comparing the health differences among high income nations. The report (released today) finds that despite spending far more on health care than any other country, the United States is far less healthy than other industrialized countries. "The tragedy is not that the US is losing a contest with other countries, but that Americans are dying and suffering from illness at rates that are demonstrably unnecessary."
You can download the report here: http://www.iom.edu/Reports/2013/US-Health-in-International-Perspective-Shorter-Lives-Poorer-Health.aspx?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+IomTopicAging+(IOM+Topic%3A+Aging)
Speaking of Facebook engendered atrocities, Hasbro, the owner of Monopoly, is asking fans of that game of haves and have-nots to choose which of their longtime board pieces will get the heave-ho in favor of a more up to date avatar (diamond ring in place of the worn shoe? How very Romneyesque of them).
The catch? You need a Facebook account in order to vote.
Will we need, one day, to be logged into Facebook in order to vote for more important things?
Save the old shoe!
This is a test.
PDPepe:
Do you mean Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton, the 19th century traveller, or the actor who married Elizabeth Taylor?
Test post.
@ Victoria: sorry, I should have clarified which Richard Burton––the actor, and yes, married–-twice-–to Taylor.
@Kate: I hate Facebook, find it creepy, and that irritating phrase "friend me" makes me gag.
@Akhilleus: After watching the Piers Morgan interview which wasn't at all an interview, more like a raving rant, with that gun loving somabitch I once again was reminded that we have among us in this great god-blessed country seriously demented humans that pose as regular folks. That ex sergeant from Texas probably bakes cupcakes for her church socials and is kind to animals yet harbors an evil in her bosom that blossoms forth in these tirades; recall that Himmler was known for his Berliner Schnauze (sharp wit) and Hitler hated the sight of blood. Makes one wary to get too close to that neighbor down the street, don't it? Sometimes a wave and a good morning will suffice.