Opinion: Race and Anti-Government Rage – AOL News

It wasn’t always this way. Whites once supported government spending, especially when we thought people like us would be the beneficiaries. Those who protest government health care didn’t object, for instance, when government-backed FHA loans helped 15 million white families afford housing from the 1940s to the 1960s, while blacks were essentially excluded. Indeed, by the early ’60s, nearly half of all mortgages received by white families were being written under this blatantly preferential government initiative. And whites didn’t mind when the government passed the Homestead Act in 1862, resulting in the distribution of over 240 million acres of essentially free land to white families.

via Opinion: Race and Anti-Government Rage – AOL News.

Al Franken Is No Joke. « PostBourgie

Al Franken Is No Joke. « PostBourgie.

via Al Franken Is No Joke. « PostBourgie.

The Racial Resentment Card

(I knew we had a card)

Love in the depths of our disagreement

Food for Thought: Low Life Expectancy in the United States: Is the Health Care System at Fault?

Americans pay more for medical care than any other country and have one of the highest levels of income per capita of any country in the world. Despite its immense wealth and healthcare spending, the United States ranks 50th in life expectancy, worse than Jordan, South Korea, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. In a Commonwealth Fund report, the U.S. ranks last among 19 countries according to the criteria of “Mortality amenable to medical care.”

No Drama Obama, Mr. Change

I’m getting the biggest kick out of these nicknames… certainly they are several steps above “liar”

Obama knows that only a handful of Republicans will support him in this effort. But he pointed out — and adopted — good GOP ideas, such as medical malpractice reform and Sen. John McCain’s idea of setting up high-risk insurance pools for the uninsured. Was that for show? Partly, sure.

But this coup de grace wasn’t: “My door is always open” to new ideas, the president said. “But know this: I will not waste time with those who have made the calculation that it’s better politics to kill this plan than improve it. … And I will not accept the status quo as a solution.”

Mr. Change is back in town.

via Borger: Obama was tough and determined – CNN.com.

via No Drama Obama, Mr. Change.

Obama advises caution in what kids put on Facebook

and other great advice…

By JULIE PACE
Associated Press Writer
ARLINGTON, Va.

President Barack Obama went forward with a controversial speech to students nationwide Tuesday, preceding it by advising young people at a suburban Virginia school to “be careful what you post on Facebook.” “Whatever you do,” he told them, “it will be pulled up later in your life.”

Pledging Allegiance to Whom?

Pledging Allegiance to Whom?.

September 8^th looms large—like an executioner, for some—over the lives of New Jersey’s elementary school students. As the date approaches, the state’s school districts are diligently at work preparing for the arrival of those placed in their charge. Concurrently, some are concerned at how their children’s schools might shift from education to propaganda.

Two reasons for concern come to mind: one from the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) which, through its Teaching Ambassador Fellows, has released a set of guidelines that schools may use to assist students in their response to Barack Obama’s address to students, at noon on the 8^th of September. The other is a video that has already been seen in a school district in Utah, where school is already in session.

The DOE guidelines appear innocuous enough, for the most part, with questions such as Who is the President of the United States? and What do you think it takes to be president? However, other suggestions have been less so, including the following: [Have students] write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president.

Study Weighs Risks of Vaccine for Cervical Cancer

“There are not a huge number of side effects here, that’s fairly certain,” said the editorial writer, Dr. Charlotte Haug, an infectious disease expert from Norway, about the vaccine. “But you are giving this to perfectly healthy young girls, so even a rare thing may be too much of a risk.

“I wouldn’t accept much risk of side effects at all in an 11-year-old girl, because if she gets screened when she’s older, she’ll never get cervical cancer,” Dr. Haug said in an interview. “You don’t have to die from cervical cancer if you have access to health care.”

She’s kidding, right? Oh, yeah… Norway HAS a universal health care system

Study Weighs Risks of Vaccine for Cervical Cancer
By RONI CARYN RABIN
Published: August 18, 2009

The new vaccine designed to protect girls and young women from cervical cancer has a safety record that appears to be in line with that of other vaccines, a government report has found. Some serious complications occurred, including at least 20 deaths and two cases of Lou Gehrig’s disease, but they were not necessarily caused by the vaccine, the study said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/19/health/research/19vaccine.html