Health Care Reform: Don’t Be Distracted By The Abortion Talk

Six in ten Americans favor a ban on the use of federal funds for abortion. Fine.  But let’s not let that stop us from passing Health Care Reform. The abortion issue and Health Care Reform are two completely different issues.  Don’t be distracted.  Don’t lose your focus.

I personally don’t believe in abortions but I believe in a woman’s right to chose.  I am not God and will therefore not judge someone else’s circumstances.  I do not believe that “the public at large” or our law makers should create legislation that would prevent many women from getting their health insurance plan to cover the cost of an abortion, even if no federal funds are involved. That’s just too black and white — what about women who are in a medical crisis?

These same people who are screaming that government is too big are the same people who want to micro-manage other people’s reproductive organs and choices.  Hypocrites!!!

Most Americans like most of the current House bill.  They like the parts that add new regulations to the health insurance industry that will stop them from discriminating against pre-existing conditions and provide more coverage for people who can’t afford health care.  Americans also like the language in the bill that requires companies to provide health insurance to their workers. But most of us are not so sure about the language that requires people to get health insurance on their own if they don’t get it through another source.  We agree with and understand the philosophy behind it, but it’s worrisome.

Folks, let us work this out.  Let us create a bill that benefits the majority of Americans.  Let us pass Health Care Reform.  Send a letter via US mail or send an email or call your elected officials and tell them what you don’t like about the existing bill and what you do like and support. Your voice matters.

Participate in the process.  Let your voice be heard. Tell our law makers to make the current House bill even better but please continue to support Health Care Reform.

Contact your elected officials — everyone from our President, Vice President, Senators, US Representatives, Governors and State legislators — by going to http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml

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A GOODBYE Ode To Sarah Palin!

On August 29, 2008 in Dayton, Ohio, then Republican presidential candidate John McCain announced that he had chosen Sarah Louise Palin as his running mate to possibly become Vice President of the United States.

Approximately 330 days after John McCain’s announcement Sarah Louise Palin resigned as Governor on July 26, 2009, two and a half years into her four-year term.

It was fun Sarah; by golly we’ll miss ya!  Good bye Sarah, goodbye!

Here is an “Ode to Sarah”. Enjoy the lyrical stylings with complex stanza forms using You Tube.

These clips sums up the intelligence of Sarah Louise Palin’s last 330 days:

 

 

NBA Playoffs: Will We See a Kobe/LeBron Final?

  There should be no political correctness during the playoffs and that’s the way it should remain.  Supporters should not hide their love for their favorite teams.  I understand players being diplomatic because they don’t want to provide fodder that will annoy, irritate or anger their opponents.  But I’m not a player so I don’t have to be genteel.  

I’m simply a fan who loves basketball and I want to see a Kobe/LeBron final.  I specifically didn’t say Kobe versus LeBron or LeBron versus Kobe. Simply a Kobe/LeBron final. I want to see a modern day gladiatorial style sports battle. 

No disrespect to the Magic or Nuggets but I hope Team Kobe and Team LeBron bounce you out of the way – quickly.

I am not completely delusional; I do know that both the LeBron Cavaliers and the Kobe Lakers face teams that could in fact maybe possibly beat them.

Yes, the Denver Nuggets swept through their first two rounds and the Lakers had to go to a game 7 in their second round. But the Lakers are consummate warriors and I believe that they will come out to battle every night against the Nuggets.  I think their every-other-game lackadaisical play against Houston is a thing of the past and taught the Lakers a lesson about public perception and they now have something to prove so they will come out with crazed passion and fervor!

So, can the Nuggets get pass the Lakers who have home court advantage?

There is also the really, really far-flung possibility that Orlando might come out roaring and magically upset Cleveland’s chances of going to the finals buuut NOT so much.  I have heard from a not so reliable source that Team Magic is spending today in Church and lighting candles for St. Christopher, the patron saint of sports because in order to win this series Orlando will have to win at least two close games and win at least one game, maybe two, in Cleveland.  I don’t think that will happen.

 

A Kobe/LeBron showdown between these two friends is what most of us want to see but our gifted athletes have to defeat some great teams to get to the finals, so go ahead and freely and unapologetically root for the Lakers or Cavaliers.  But as always the human factor will come into play: 

Which team will remain healthy?

Which team has the mental strength to put the living fear in their opponent? 

Which team is faster, stronger and wiser?

Watch the hilarious Nike commericals below:  🙂

Rush Limbaugh PUNKS Michael Steele

Is Michael Steele (the man of steel) now the aluminum man?  Did the Republicans punk the RNC Chairman and elect him just to be their pawn to use as collateral at their will to make the public-at-large believe that the Republicans are ready for ‘change’?

Steele won the Republican National Committee chairmanship on the strength of his alluring rhetoric but his oratory got him in trouble.  He called radio personality Limbaugh “incendiary,” “ugly” and “an entertainer!” Aluminum also insisted that the radio personality is not the de facto leader of the Republican Party.

The entertainer took the statement that he was not the de facto leader of the elephants as a compliment, retorting on the air, “I would be embarrassed to say that I’m in charge of the Republican Party in the sad-sack state that it’s in.”

But the rest of Aluminum’s statement did not go over well with the radio personality. So the GOP’s new face did a quick about-face after the personality gave him a tongue lashing on air.  The punk of a GOP chairman sat around fretfully and as soon as the radio personality got off the air 51 minutes later Aluminum was on the phone APLOGIZING for being a very bad subject and licking the entertainer’s boots. That proves two things to me – Michael Steele has NO juice in the Republican Party and Limbaugh the entertainer is not the sad-sack party’s de facto leader, but its actual leader.

What is extremely interesting to me is that no Republicans have come to Steele’s defense – not even one.  They all seem to have developed a severe case of laryngitis or have become mutes — when it comes to Steele’s defense anyway.  Can you imagine, the Republicans elected Steele four weeks ago and they have already abandoned, discarded and forsaken him because of Limbaugh’s bark.

What will now happen to the outreach to ‘urban-suburban hip-hop settings’ via an ‘off the hook’ public relations campaign that Steele promised? 🙄

Steele’s comments:

Lambuagh’s response:

The Views’ view:

Are You A Good Driver?

I just came home from running errands and I am frustrated like hell.  One thing has remained constant since I moved to Florida: my continued frustration with the way many people drive in Florida.

Honestly, how do you rate yourself as a driver?

Silly me.  I take that question back. Of course you rate yourself as being above average. It’s a well-known fact that all humans consider themselves to be above-average drivers. No amount of physical evidence will convince a bad driver that he or she is a bad driver.

 You take a driver who, while attempting to pull out of a parking space, mistakes “forward” for “reverse,” then, in an effort to correct this error, mistakes the accelerator for the brake and sends his car lunging across a sidewalk and into a diner whilst attaining a speed of 40 mph by the time it rams into the salad bar and car and driver are saturated by carafes of salad dressing.

Even as the paramedics are tweezing corn and peas from the ears and nose of the driver he will loudly insist that the restaurant was not there before and that there are plenty of people on the road who do not drive as well as he does.

And the scary thing is: he’s right! There are LOTS of worse drivers out there! In fact over 90% of all drivers are below average and most of them are here in Florida — I am not exaggerating – I have seen most of them! I don’t know what the driving experience is like in your state but it’s unusual in Florida.

 Florida seems to attract inferior drivers like a magnet.  In addition to this fatal attraction it seems to automatically issue a driver’s license to anyone who asks for one.  Ask and ye shall receive a Florida drivers license.  The “road” test is a joke – you don’t even go on the road.  Driver’s license road tests are pretty much taken in a supermarket parking lot and licenses are issued to seventeen year olds and seventy year olds as freely as Gatorade at a football game on a really hot day!

As someone who recently moved to Florida it STILL boggles my mind whenever I see a car accident and there was only one car involved with absolutely no traffic on the road – WTH!!!  Is it still an accident if there is only one car involved? Or is it a mishap, a mistake or simply a moronic episode?

But getting back to your driving ability – I can tell from the sympathetic way you’re reading this post that you truly are an above average driver.  So am I, of course.  Anyway, since you and I are such superior drivers, I wanted to share with you an excellent suggestion by Florida motorist Ana Garcia – her name was changed to protect this excellent driver.  Ana begins by noting the annoying behavior of certain motorists, especially the ones who drift aimlessly along in the left, or “passing” lane, mile after clueless mile, never passing anybody and never noticing the 5 mile back-up of cars behind them flashing their lights, honking their horns, making explicit hand gestures while firing marine flares.

Is Jeb Bush Aiming For The White House?

 Can American afford another Bush in the White House?  I don’t think so. I know that the Bushes want to see Jeb Bush as President someday but had pushed that hope to the side since Dubya was an inept President at best.  Dubya invaded Iraq and started a war of choice with Iraq over WMD which never existed.  Dubya flew over as New Orleans sank and now Dubya is standing on the sidelines drinking Peruvian Piso Sours as America’s economy is flushed down the toilet.

Now Jeb wants to be a Senator from Florida. Undoubtedly he sees this as a stepping stone to the White House.

Two sources close to Jeb Bush, including one who has spoken to the former Florida governor within the past few hours, say he is seriously considering a run for Senate now that incumbent Republican Mel Martinez has retired.“He is receiving a lot of encouragement from both in and out of the state,” a longtime Bush adviser said tonight. “He is going to take his time and approach this very methodically.”  Bush will weigh, according to this adviser, how a run would impact his family, his business, and whether the Senate would be the best platform for the causes he’d advocate — education, immigration, GOP solutions to health care and energy.“the old white-guy party” and that it ought to modulate the way it handles the immigration issue. Bush, who speaks fluent Spanish and won the support of a majority of Hispanic voters during his 2002 re-election bid, favors a comprehensive approach to reform. But Bush said that Republicans can’t give up on conservatism, and, in what might be interpreted as a dig at Florida’s current governor, said that Republicans “can’t be Democrat-lite. We can’t just ‘get along.”  The words echo some Republican criticism of Crist, who they view as accodomationist in his politics and unwilling to push for real reforms.

 

Bush did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment.

If he decides to run, Republicans expect the field to clear for him.  Maybe. Governor Charlie Crist, with whom Bush has not had the warmest of relations, is said to be interested in moving to the Senate. Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum is weighing a bid, as is former state House Speaker Marco Rubio, Orange County executive Richard Crotty, and U.S. Rep. Connie Mack.

Bush, in an interview with Newsmax this week, said that the GOP risked becoming

Wall Streeters Drinking More At Lunch

 The titans of Wall Street have taken a battering in the financial markets recently, but they are eating well and drinking more, according to the people who run Manhattan’s “power” dining spots.

At the 21 Club, a longtime redoubt of corporate chieftains and big names, alcohol sales are up 9 per cent from last year, and businessmen can be seen drinking $14-a-glass cocktails as early as 3pm on a weekday.

“Where people used to have one vodka on the rocks, now it’s a second one or maybe a third,” says Roger Rice, the floor manager. “I don’t know what to attribute it to. Maybe it’s the last year of the expense account.”

Others say their customers are drinking more to drown their sorrows. “People want to feel a little numb because it’s numbing out there,” says Steve Millington, general manager at Michael’s, the restaurant of choice for publishing and media executives.

He reports that alcohol sales are up a fifth from last year. “At dinner, hard liquor sales are up, cocktails and martinis. It’s less so at lunch. People are drinking wine at lunch, less the high-end wines and more medium-priced wines.”

 The increase in alcohol sales is clear, says Mr. Millington, because overall customer levels are on a par with last year. “There’s a scent of fear,” he says.

Times are good at Delmonico’s, the 181-year-old fine dining restaurant, says Dennis Turcinovic, managing partner.

“It’s scary to say, but our business is up 6 to 7 per cent,” he says. “Alcohol sales . . . help a lot, they’re about 15 per cent up this year. The bar’s busy all day. I’ve had to hire extra barmaids.”

There are few signs that people are saving money on food either. At San Pietro, an upmarket Italian restaurant, business remains brisk. Gerardo Bruno, president, says overall business is up 12 per cent from last year.

In spite of the turmoil in the markets, one rule has held firm at San Pietro. “Americans, they never drink at lunch,” Mr. Bruno says. As for dinner, hard liquor sales are down, but after-dinner drinks, particularly grappa and cognac, are up, he adds.

Wine sales remain strong, especially at dinner, except for one noticeable change. “When times are fantastic, the host does not lead, he lets his guests lead in choosing the wine,” says Mr. Bruno. However, in the current climate, dinner hosts are turning to him to ask for wine recommendations, a clear sign that restraint is in order, according to Mr. Bruno.

Yet not everyone has suffered in the economic downturn. Mr. Bruno produced two empty bottles of 1947 Petrus, consumed recently by a Chinese customer who called ahead to order the wines.

The price?

 A mere $12,000 each.

 

 

Original article:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/693de752-bdaa-11dd-bba1-0000779fd18c.html