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Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices.

Voltaire

Senate Republicans pledge that their first crack at repealing The Affordable Care Act (ACA) won’t be their last.  Some refer to it as Obama’s Health Care Law or Obamacare.  The ACA is about Freedom.  Some factions are adamantly drilling in the idea that the ACA is taking away our freedom to not have insurance.  They push the idea that the government is trying to control your body and kill your grandma. When our presidents wife suggests we grow our own food and get more exercise she is compared to Stalin.  It is OK for a child to grow up and die in a war to protect our freedom to not have health insurance?  Please read the truth…

Today, employers can begin submitting applications for the Early Retiree Reinsurance Program. Created by the Affordable Care Act, this program provides $5 billion in financial assistance to employers, unions and state and local governments to help them maintain coverage for early retirees age 55 and older who are not yet eligible for Medicare.

For too long insurance company bureaucrats have stood between Americans and their doctors. On Tuesday, President Obama announced new regulations that will crack down on unfair practices by insurers and change the balance of power back in favor of consumers – putting consumers back in charge of their health coverage and care.

Secretary Sebelius marks the three month anniversary of the Affordable Care Act with a live webchat where she will answer your questions.

Today, HHS announced new investments under the Affordable Care Act to support prevention activities and develop the nation’s public health infrastructure which will improve health and enhance health care quality.

To read more facts go to…

Most Americans without insurance don’t have insurance because they can’t afford it not because they don’t want it.  The gentleman who owns the small restaurant had to let his family plan go to keep the business afloat and ignored his chest pains.  The waitress let her private plan go after rates increased due to her kidney stones in order to pay for her condo she paid too much for in 2005.  Most emergency rooms are full of “self-pays”  because self-pays use ER’s as their only source of health care.  Preventative care does not exist for the average self-pay American.
Most restaurants and small businesses can’t afford to offer insurance plans and private plans are expensive, with high deductibles.  There are a those not yet experiencing problems with their health, but they have rent and weddings and cell phone plans to pay for and insurance premiums just don’t fit in to the budget.

The ACA will enhance our freedom — freedom from worry about accidents and sickness, freedom from worrying that if you use your insurance the rates will go up or worse yet you’ll no longer be covered, free from discrimination, free to provide insurance for our adult children, and free preventive care for seniors.

My favorite freedom is the freedom to have your own business because you are no longer forced to work in the corporate world to provide insurance for your family.  Many corporations don’t want us to have that kind of freedom and are backing politicians who convince us to keep things just as they are.

Just be careful what you wish for.

“…The health care law is little different from Social Security. The court unanimously recognized  in 1982 that it would be “difficult, if not impossible” to maintain the financial soundness of a Social Security system from which people could opt out. The same analysis holds here: by restricting certain economic choices of individuals, we ensure the vitality of a regulatory regime clearly within Congress’s power to establish. The justices aren’t likely to be misled by the reasoning that prompted two of the four federal courts that have ruled on this legislation to invalidate it on the theory that Congress is entitled to regulate only economic “activity,” not “inactivity,” like the decision not to purchase insurance. This distinction is illusory. Individuals who don’t purchase insurance they can afford have made a choice to take a free ride on the health care system. They know that if they need emergency-room care that they can’t pay for, the public will pick up the tab. This conscious choice carries serious economic consequences for the national health care market, which makes it a proper subject for federal regulation.

By LAURENCE H. TRIBE

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I feel that an individual whose actions are motivated by the wish to bring others happiness necessarily meets with less misfortune that one who does not. Sickness, old age, mishaps of one sort or another are the same for us all. But the sufferings which undermine our internal peace – anxiety, doubt, disappointment – these are definitely less.

Dalai Lama

…so according to this graph, unless the NOAA is lying, the average temperature in 2008 was about 54 degrees F.  The average temp in 1895 was about 52 degrees F.  Perhaps this isn’t significant, but, then again, perhaps it is.

If you look at it in degrees C it is only a difference of about 11.3 to 12.1.  Not impressive enough to get you out of your Ram tough truck?

Smart scientists are having a blue bloody bird over this stuff.  We’re so busy being mad at Republicans or Democrats or Wall Street or Mexicans we aren’t looking at what is really important.  This planet isn’t just a big floating rock, it is alive and we need to keep it that way.  There isn’t another live planet for us to go to.

Isn’t New Years Day fun?  You can wander anywhere saying Happy New Year to anyone and no one gets offended.  If you happen to be on a warm sunny beach walk on New Years Day many smiles are returned to you when you wish strangers a Happy New Year.  “Love actually is all around.”

Last month while Christmas Shopping a sideways glance was given to me by a checkout girl when I finished up our transaction with wishing her a “Merry Christmas”.    No offense was meant.  It is shameful that the season of  “Peace on Earth”  causes such profound separation.  If you say “happy holiday” or “enjoy the season” you may experience equally disdainful looks from those who believe that “Merry Christmas” should be the announcement.

I love the theory behind Christmas.  The peace and goodwill and the idea that Jesus taught us to love one another.  it just isn’t what seems to prevail.

“You inherit an old house.  A real fixer-upper.  You scramble around to earn some money and scrape together some funding to start improving it.  Some of your better-off friends are a little jealous because, while the place is a wreck, it’s in a great location.  You start fixing the foundations where the floor was sagging.  You spend money replacing the galvanized pipes with copper…you start re-wiring the outlets so they’ll be grounded.  You throw a party even though you’ve just started the renovation.  People who come over see a fixer-upper.  A dump.  Some may see the potential.  Most just cannot believe you spent X-dollars and the house is still a mess.

This country is that house.  The previous administration looted the Treasury and the moral underpinnings of American Values were smashed.  A lot of effort has been made to stabilize the wreckage and it doesn’t show up to an observer who can’t imagine what it would look like if it had been allowed to continue to fall apart.”   David Gene Echt

Half the country needs to be educated or re-educated to take on the jobs of change. He promised us change, and we’re getting it. Now we have to participate,  involve ourselves in the change. Velma Hart is obviously doing everything right, kids in private schools, a noble profession, no credit card, living within her means; what do you say to that? The healthcare reforms,bank bailouts, credit card rules and education changes that Obama has undertaken aren’t helping her,because she paid her mortgage, has health care through the VA (which, by the way, is socialist health care), she doesn’t use a credit card and she has always lived within her means so they won’t help her or the half of the country who lives as she lives , they help the irresponsible half and that half doesn’t want anything to change, and they don’t want to participate in change.

People like Velma suffer because of the speculators and gamblers who have played around with our hard earned dollars and want to continue to do so.  There is also the fear of the unknown that is driven into our minds by the media, which is paid by those same speculators and gamblers.  I won’t even get in to the religious zealots that feed their line of garbage that plays on faith.  They are yelling, because if they yell loud enough people can’t hear the truth.

Meantime, 19 year olds are aiming bullets at each others heads in some sandy venue in the name of religious zealots, media hype, speculators, gamblers and that coveted Kardashian lifestyle.

I ran across a website that visually represented how much money BP lost due to the oil spill.   I was incredulous.  That much money exists?  It is a loss they plan to recoup.  How do you suppose they will make up the loss?

They have convinced us to drive bigger cars, drink our water from a bottle, use more plastic and carry on with war, any war.  Oil men love war.  War is what truly feeds Seymour.  You remember the insatiable plant from “Little Shop of Horrors”.  I liken the oil (and coal) industry to Seymour’s need to keep his plant alive.  In the beginning it was a nice fun little plant.  Harmless, at least relatively.  The plant like the oil industry has gotten so big it is devouring the planet through wars and plastic and large ships and cruise liners that carry us and our crap across oceans.

We are convinced that if we all pile on a giant boat together life will be more fun.  We are convinced that the stuff we have is not good enough.  It all needs to be replaced by better stuff.  Most of the stuff is plastic and plastic is made from oil and the plastic is brought to us on giant boats that require massive amounts of oil.  This insatiable need has been brought to you by the oil industry.

We can’t blame oil entirely.  Coal is what fuels this nations heat and air and lights.  The current grid was set up by the coal industry and subsidized by the US government.  It was harmless and useful in its beginnings.  What a blessing to have heat and air and light due to the fabulous grid work that traverses the nation.  Except, now it too is like Seymour’s plant.  Dividing and devouring and convincing us that nothing else will do.

So let me share the website that prompted this blog…

http://www.visualeconomics.com/what-bp-could-have-bought-with-all-the-money-they-lost/

I wrote to my smart friend Fred who gave me this reply…

So you see in the world of business BP’s loss isn’t so much. Don’t feel sorry for them. Don’t think how much good this money could have done because it pales in comparison to the money we waste on wars. Iraq I believe was $1,000 billion. That’s 112 times what BP wasted.

When you look at it this way — it isn’t oil and coal that feeds Seymour’s plant.  Economics feeds the plant.  How often does economic advantage take precedence over doing good?  Goodness faces doom when it gets in the way of the economy.

What truly amazed me is that 3.4 billion dollars would buy an ice cream sandwich for everyone in the world and yahoo is worth 20 billion.  Wouldn’t it be cool if yahoo bought an ice cream sandwich for everyone in the world?  There is probably a soy version for the lactose intolerant.

The Top 10 Things You May Not Know About the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act

Here are 10 aspects of the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act you may not know about — the online attention-deficit version.

1. Stronger protections for consumers against unfair credit card practices like rate hikes for existing credit card balances.  When my son had a traffic accident I didn’t work for a month to be at his bedside,  I had a credit card with a 9% rate that I never used, but kept for emergencies.  As soon as I used it the rate went to 18%.  When I called to complain, they dropped the rate to 16% and told me that was “standard practice“.   I told them this was “standard bullshit” paid it off and canceled the card forever.
2. Mortgage brokers will be prohibited from making higher commissions by selling mortgages they know consumers can’t afford. But –  We love the stuff we can’t afford. We need to go back to –> we can only have what we can afford.  Then the cost of living will drop and the pay scales will rise and we’ll need less stuff.  Like “Happy Days”.
3. Free annual credit scores so people can stay on top of their finances. [Clarification: free credit scores are available if you receive worse terms on a loan because of something on your credit report, or if you are rejected. You think this will make folks stay on top of their finances?
   
4. No more taxpayer-funded bailouts. yay!! If a company can’t make it, it will have to liquidate.  If what they sell is junk, they need to go down. Like the company building junky jets for the air force — they went down.
5. Greater input by company shareholders over how much a CEO gets paid.  Companies’ compensation boards are now required to be truly independent.  you mean they weren’t in charge of a CEO’s pay or compensation?
6. Brokers who offer investment advice will have to act in the best interests of their customers, not their own financial interests.  Oh, yeah, like some federal law is gonna make that happen.
7. Financial firms won’t be allowed to grow so large that if one fails, it will affect the entire financial system.   Isn’t that why we don’t allow monopolies? When did that change?
8. There will be one agency whose sole job is to make sure that consumers get the protections they deserve and to set clear rules to hold banks, mortgage companies, payday lenders, and credit card lenders accountable.  It will be interesting to see how this works out. I’m sure you anti-government types are focusing on this one.
9. Businesses can’t be charged extra fees for debit card “swipe fees” that exceed the cost of processing transactions.
10. You can learn plenty more here at WhiteHouse,gov or at financialstability.gov
11. Updated: To tack on #11, here’s a new animated video we’ve released to further explain Wall Street Reform.

RE:  My son’s accident–> I didn’t borrow from mother, father, sister, brother or friend, I had money sitting around doing nothing waiting for the inevitable shit that happens in life.  Something governments, companies and individuals all need to do.

While drinking my hot beverage made from the beans of a tree and paying my water bill I started thinking more about water.  Coffee bean trees grow because of water and my coffee is brewed in water.

Water keeps our exquisite Earth alive.  It saves us and our earth from being lifeless mineral globs.  Of course, we nor the earth would be alive long if all the earths water was contaminated.  I wonder why we care more about oil,  than clean water?

The critter above seems to be savoring that little orb of clean water the way I am savoring my coffee right now.  I am a lifeless mineral glob without my Java.

Water plus carbon and a few other minerals makes us.  To give anything life, to keep anything alive it must have water. Someone came up with a way for cars to run on water.  Who would interfere with that technology and why, someone devilish?

Water is so life giving that I think maybe God is water and we are drilling for –> well,  you get my point?

I hate self check out lanes with every thing I’m made of.  That is a job that someone doesn’t have because you are checking your own stuff out.  The automated cashier is telling me to have a nice day?  That is bullshit –> which is a phrase I have used while walking out the door without buying my cart full of stuff.

A large home supplies store recently had four self checking lanes open and one cocky employee announcing to all of us customers floundering at the self checkouts. “I got it all under control baby”  I asked miss “control baby” if someone was sent home early, and wages were lost because of those self checking lanes.  She pretended to be too busy to answer my question.

While touring Oregon, I noticed that every gas station had an attendant to pump your gas for you and the gas didn’t cost more.  It was to keep people working.  Did you know that at one time it was unheard of to pump your own gas?  How long will it be before people find out that at one time it was unheard of to check out your own stuff.  Maybe we’ll think about it while sitting in unemployment lines.  We’ll have automated nurses, police and loan officers.

Did you know that Monsanto (the same company that brought us agent orange) together with Syngenta, Dupont and Bayer controls almost all agriculture in the World?  They are like drug suppliers except they are in the seed business.  Ever wonder why the fruits and vegetables at grocery stores are so big and plump and colorful compared to the fruits and veggies at farmers markets?  Monsanto adds stuff, pesticides and they have created hybrid seeds that the farmers have to buy.  They have a contract. Small farmers have been successfully sued by Monsanto when they violate any terms of the contract.  Drug suppliers send out heavies that break your arms and Monsanto sends out heavies in the form of lawyers that break your family.

Independently owned farms are actually corporate farms as long as they use Monsanto seeds.  This is a fact of life in the US and we have grown accustomed to our giant red and yellow produce. Literature tells us to eat colorful food to be healthy.  Many Americans are wising up and going to farmers markets and food co-ops to avoid the pesticides and antibiotics and fungicides like Thiram that are added to Monsanto seeds to make stuff look better.  We have hospitals full of antibiotic resistant diseases and cancer.  Do you think there is any relation?

I had my own garden many years ago when I was pregnant with my son.  We had the good fortune of renting a little Wisconsin farmette that had been abandoned for many years after the owners died.  We washed the house and painted it.  We took the 10 year old cow crap that was in the barn and put a little clump at the bottom of every hole and put seeds and starter plants in the bottom.  It was a small town and people took pride in their gardens.  This garden was my first and my neighbors were full of wonderful advice.  I wrapped my tomato plants with newspaper to prevent pests, I picked off the little sucker growths, and I planted as they advised to make sure the tallness of the corn didn’t block out the sunlight to the lower plants.  We had a pear tree, an apple tree, and a concord grape vine.

I had a basement full of potatoes, giant red tomatos, squash, peppers, melon and everything was huge and colorful.  My take on all of this is we buy the cow poop from organic ranchers and pay Wisconsin farm wives to teach us how to grow stuff.   Then we won’t need seeds with scary additives.

Meantime, I was reading an article in “Yes” magazine…

Monsanto has donated to Haiti some of their hybrid corn seeds.  These seeds are treated with the fungicide Maxim XO, and the calypso tomato seeds are treated with thiram. [ The EPA determined that EBDC-treated plants are so dangerous to agricultural workers that they must wear special protective clothing when handling them. The EPA also ruled that pesticides containing thiram must contain a special warning label. The EPA also barred marketing of the chemicals for many home garden products, based on the assumption that most gardeners do not have adequately protective clothing. Dress like an astronaut to do your gardening?

Vía Campesina, the world’s largest confederation of farmers with member organizations in more than 60 countries, has called Monsanto one of the “principal enemies of peasant sustainable agriculture and food sovereignty for all peoples.” [In the United States –>The Center for Food Safety has led a four-year legal challenge against Monsanto that has just made it to the U.S. Supreme Court. After successful litigation against Monsanto and the U.S. Department of Agriculture for illegal promotion of Roundup Ready Alfalfa, the court heard the Center for Food Safety’s case on April 27. A decision on this first-ever Supreme Court case about GMOs is now pending. [14]

Go to

http://www.yesmagazine.org/blogs/beverly-bell-in-haiti/haitian-farmers-refuse-monsanto-hybrid-seeds

and

http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/food-for-everyone/food-rebellions-7-steps-to-solving-the-food-crisis

if you’d like to read the entire article and others like it.