Who are you, yourself, alone and nameless?

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_062509/content/01125107.member.html

And the first question that we're referring to here is Dr. Orrin Devinsky. He's a New York neurosurgeon.  He asked this question of President Obama:  "If your wife or your daughter became seriously ill and things were not going well and the plan physicians told you they were doing everything that could be done and you sought out opinions from some medical leaders in major centers and they said, 'There's another option that you should pursue,' but it wasn't covered in your plan, would you potentially sacrifice the health of your family for the greater good of insuring millions, or would you do everything possible as a father and husband to get the best healthcare and outcome for your family?"

( Obama answers Yes )Next question.  Member of the audience.  Jane Sturm: "My mother is now over 105.  But at 100, the doctors said to her, 'I can't do anything more unless you have a pacemaker.'  I said, 'Go for it.'  She said, 'Go for it.'  But the specialist said, 'No, she's too old.'  But when the other specialist saw her and saw her joy of life, he said, 'I'm going for it.'  That was over five years ago.  My question to you is:  Outside the medical criteria for prolonging life for somebody who is elderly, is there any consideration that can be given for a certain spirit, a certain joy of living, a quality of life, or is it just a medical cutoff at a certain age?"
( Obama answers No )

http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/polling_obama_disapproval/2009/06/22/227789.html

More Americans now "strongly disapprove" of Barack Obama's performance as president than "strongly approve," according to the most recent Rasmussen poll.
...

In the Rasmussen poll, the percentage of voters who blame George Bush for the country's economic ills is down eight points from a month ago, to 54 percent, while 39 percent say the country's economic problems are a result of Obama's policies. "A growing number say it's Obama's economy now," Rasmussen observed.

Other Rasmussen poll findings include:

* Only 46 percent of respondents think Obama is doing an excellent or good job with the economy. * Just 30 percent say they trust Obama to handle the economic crisis. * 60 percent of voters now trust their own judgment on economic issues more than the president's. * 51 percent of voters favor an across-the-board tax cut for all Americans to stimulate the economy.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/06/republicans_and_battered_spous.html

• Do you feel nervous when you're around a liberal?
• Are you scared of disagreeing with liberals?
• Do you remain silent in front of a liberal because you want them to like you?
• Do you try to please a liberal, only to be rebuked for your efforts?
• Do liberals criticize you, or humiliate you in front of other people?
• Do you have to control your behavior or your language to avoid their anger and ridicule?
• Do you feel pressured by them to participate in activities you find offensive?
• Do liberals mock you when your express profoundly held beliefs about capitalism, religion, sex and gender issues?
• Do liberals demand that you think, speak, and even support ideas that are disgusting to you?
• Are liberals always calling you names?
• Do liberals repeatedly and wrongly accuse you of being something you're not, such as racist, homophobic, and uncaring?
• Do liberals tell you that if you changed, they wouldn't have to say these awful things about you?
• Do you believe that if you changed, the liberal would like you more?
• Are liberals jealous because you have made a success of your life?
• Do liberals blame you for everything that goes wrong in their lives?
• Do liberals tell lies about you?
• Do liberals threaten your freedom of movement?
• Do liberals interfere with the way you want to raise, discipline and educate your children?
• Do liberals make you feel like you are wrong, stupid, crazy or inadequate?
• Do liberals attempt to prevent you from doing what makes you happy?
• Do liberals put roadblocks in your way when you try to escape their plans for you?
• Do liberals attempt to control your money, your associations, and your goals?
• Are you expected to do things to please liberals, rather than to please yourself?
• Do you feel that, with liberals, nothing you ever do is good enough?
• Do liberals claim it's your own fault they are attacking you, or claim that they were "just joking" when they hurled epithets at you?
• Have liberals ever scared you by threatening to get even, or to ruin your reputation, or by suggesting that they are the only people standing between you and the pitchforks?

http://www.newsmax.com/morris/Obamanomics_fails/2009/06/04/221589.html

In April, personal household, inflation-adjusted income rose by $122 billion. Of that increase, one-third or $44 billion, came from the government's stimulus program. But while personal income was rising, household savings (which includes paying down credit card balances, mortgages, student loans, car loans, etc) rose by $132 billion — $10 billion more than the rise in income. So personal consumption dropped 0.1 percent.

The stimulus package was a total and complete failure.

As predicted, as happened with Bush's 2008 tax cut, as happened with the Japanese stimulus packages of the 90s, fearful consumers sat on their money and wouldn't spend it. Keynesian economics didn't work. Again.

But the debt sure piled up.

The deficit quadrupled and is sending interest rates soaring as the government elbows aside businesses and consumers at the loan window, all in a desperate effort to borrow enough money to spend enough money to stimulate the economy, which isn't happening.

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_052809/content/01125111.guest.html

RUSH:  I have an e-mail.  The e-mail's interesting.  I've answered this question I don't know how many times.  I've explained it.  This guy hasn't heard it.  So here's the question.  "Dear Rush: You keep saying that Obama wants to return the wealth of our nation to its rightful owners.  Who's he talking about?  Who exactly is he talking about?"  He doesn't use the phrase.  It is my phrase to help people understand Obama's philosophy.  In Obama's mind this is an immoral and an unjust country and the people who have prospered, which is just anybody who has a dollar more than you have in his book, people who have prospered have done so by cheating or by stealing or by doing it on the backs of others.  And this has led this nation to being unjust and immoral.  All prosperity and all wealth is suspect.  So when I say that Obama's policy is to return the nation's wealth to its rightful owners, I'm talking about people he would put in the middle and lower classes:  Union members, minorities, any minority, people who have never succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.  In other words, the vast majority of the American people.  ( Cut for length )

We can argue about the disaster that's going to be, but my only point to you is that all of the middle class, all of these people that voted for Obama, all of the recipients of this grand compassion are the ones getting screwed.  They're the ones that can't pay their mortgage, they're the ones credit cards are closing them down, raising rates.  They are the ones that don't have jobs; they're the ones whose mortgages are being foreclosed.  They're the ones that are having trouble getting health care once they get laid off.  All of this was supposed to be fixed by now, all of this was supposed to be turned around.  It's just getting worse and worse and worse and worse and worse as it goes on.  So the wealth of the nation, wherever it's going, it's going somewhere, but it ain't headed back to its rightful owners.

A recent poll showed that 44% of Massachusetts residents oppose gay marriage. (43% support.) Out of the opposition, 36% agreed with the statement, "Some people I know personally would be reluctant to admit they oppose gay marriage because they would worry about the consequences for them or their children." 24% agree strongly. 15% say they know someone personally who experienced intimidation or harassment based on their belief.

Let's run some numbers, taking the Massachusetts population count in Wikipedia and doing the percentages.

2,859,106 people oppose gay marriage.

1.029,278 agreed with the statement "Some people I know personally would be reluctant to admit they oppose gay marriage because they would worry about the consequences for them or their children.

686,185 agree strongly.

428,870 know someone personally who experienced intimidation or harassment based on their opposition to gay marriage.

This is only in the state of Massachusetts, mind you.

In 2007, there were 1,512 victims of hate crimes due to sexual orientation, according to FBI statistics taken straight from their website. Nationally. 27 of them were anti-heterosexual.

5 of them were murders, and 242 of them were aggravated assault. 448 were simple assault, and 335 were "intimidation".

So basically...

There were 1025 incidences of intimidation or violence reported against people for their sexual orientation nationally.

1,029,279 people in Massachusetts alone know someone who would fear violence done to them or their children if they voiced their disapproval for gay marriage, and 428,870 know someone who's had it happen to them.

Who needs protection?

http://www.newsmax.com/limbaugh/healthcare_socialized_/2009/05/15/214714.html

With the left, which forever complains about the religious right's moralizing, it's always a moral issue. Hillary Clinton said, "It's really indefensible that we now have more than 45 million uninsured Americans, 9 million of whom are children, and the vast majority of whom are from working families."

But did you know that, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report, more than 10 million of these "uninsured" are not U.S. citizens? That almost 18 million, with annual incomes exceeding $50,000, can afford health insurance but choose not to buy it? That more than half of those 18 million people make more than $75,000? That about 19 million of the uninsured are between 18 and 34 and may not consider coverage a pressing priority? That almost half the uninsured remain without insurance for an average of only four months? Without question, these figures overlap, but it's safe to say that the left's alleged number of truly uninsured is enormously overstated and distorted.

"Everybody wins when people act in their own self-interest. Self-interest is excellence; it's what propels people to perform and achieve. Self-interest, people wanting their families to be secure and to prosper, parents wanting their kids to be properly educated, improves an entire society. Providing for yourself and your family is right and just and simply good.

Conversely, when you vote for politicians who take from your back pocket to give to others -- do you think it's compassionate and caring? It's not. It deprives you of what's yours to care for your family; worse, it deprives the recipient of his own quest to act in self interest -- the most empowering experience a human being can know.

Giving up your individual identity, giving up who you are, sacrificing your passions and your desires and your own self-interests for the so-called 'common good,' is what liberals want. But who gets to define the common good? The real common good is each person acting as an individual, doing what he or she was born to do, pursuing self-interest. That's the common good that built engines and airplanes and railroads and cities; that's the common good that built a great country. People denying who they are built... nothing.

When you suppress your individuality, when you trade it for acceptance into a group, when you follow the tug of popular sentiment, you are letting the country down. You are seeking approval and acceptance from the wrong sources. You're throwing away the greatest gift you've been given -- who you are."

Rush Limbaugh, The Limbaugh Letter, May 2009

http://worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=96776

Welfare reform was unsuccessful because the important goals of improving marriage rates and reducing out-of-wedlock births were not addressed. Single mothers must work full time and children must be raised by day-care centers and schools – driving the day-care and schools-as-parent crises. Welfare reform turned fathers into status criminals facing jail if they cannot provide a mandated welfare payment often in excess of real earning capacity.

Since welfare reform was enacted in 1996, out-of-wedlock births skyrocketed and marriage rates continue to slide. Robert Rector pointed to the missing policy link in 2007: "If poor mothers married the fathers of their children, nearly three quarters of the nation's impoverished youth would immediately be lifted out of poverty."

...

The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) was hastily re-authorized with full bipartisan support in late 2007. Unfortunately, VAWA is a primary destroyer of marriage, immigration law and due process standards. Only a sworn statement is required to instantly seize marriages, assets, green cards and a breathtaking array of free benefits. VAWA has historically provided no salient results and has harmed marriage because it fails to positively address the primary driver of spousal violence – substance abuse – a preventable and very treatable addictive disorder.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=493916

Last Friday (April 17), during this year's event, the student council of American River College in Sacramento, California, voted 11-5 to pass a resolution that put the college on record as opposing the Day of Silence. George Popko, a representative on the student council, explains the rationale behind the resolution.
 
"The resolution basically stated that part of our duties were to, as a student government, ...promote student activities in the best interest of the students which stimulate the intellectual, physical, and social life of our college," says Popko. "And we thought that the Day of Silence was not such an activity because it's been used in the past in the Sacramento area, and I assume nationwide, to silence opposing viewpoints...at some of the local high schools."
 
Popko says while there was standing room only during the debate, in the end a majority vote in favor of the resolution was cast. "The author of the resolution is also from the former Soviet Union where...they used similar propaganda to intimidate religious groups and things like that," he adds.
...

Meanwhile, a pro-family advocate near American River College reports she received death threats from homosexual activists on the Day of Silence. Voice messages and emails were sent to Karen England, executive director of the Sacramento-based Capitol Resource Institute, in response to her suggestion that children walk out of school in protest of the Day of Silence. (Listen to audio report)
 
Following is one of the messages left on England's voice mail: "You're a disgrace to the American woman. You're a disgrace to public -- and I wish you would just go kill yourself."
 
England saved the voice messages and emails and produced a YouTube video. [CAUTION: The linked video contains material not suitable for children.]
 
England admits she is deeply concerned -- and not just for herself. "If I'm getting this just over encouraging kids to remain home, I can't imagine what it's like to send a junior high or high school student into an environment where everyone is participating and they say, 'No, I'm not going to,'" she shares.
 
According to England, some of the threatening callers actually left their phone numbers. She is turning that information over to the police, and says she may file criminal charges.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123993462778328019.html

Here's something that has gotten lost in the drive to institute universal health insurance: Health insurance doesn't automatically lead to health care. And with more and more doctors dropping out of one insurance plan or another, especially government plans, there is no guarantee that you will be able to see a physician no matter what coverage you have.

Consider that the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission reported in 2008 that 28% of Medicare beneficiaries looking for a primary care physician had trouble finding one, up from 24% the year before. The reasons are clear: A 2008 survey by the Texas Medical Association, for example, found that only 38% of primary-care doctors in Texas took new Medicare patients. The statistics are similar in New York state, where I practice medicine.

More and more of my fellow doctors are turning away Medicare patients because of the diminished reimbursements and the growing delay in payments.

http://www.newsmax.com/morris/obama_economy/2009/04/16/203829.html

Sit in on a corporate board room struggling to come to grips with the new economic climate Obama has created. Do we expand? Create more jobs? Launch a new product line? Step up our marketing efforts? Ratchet up production?

Well, wait a minute — the bigger our company gets, the closer we come to being "too big to fail," a "systemic risk." The nearer we are to intrusive government oversight, limits on executive pay, and regulators breathing down our necks.

We better watch out. We may even get taken over. Stay small. Forget the new jobs.

An investor ponders where to put his 401(k) retirement money. Should I invest in robust, growing companies? Firms with a bright future? I better be careful — they could get so big that they get taken over by the government and I would lose my entire investment.

Don't invest in firms that will fail, but stay away from those that will succeed too.

Meanwhile, at the kitchen table, a middle class family discusses their career moves. Should she go back to school to pursue a better job at higher pay? Should he put in overtime? Move up in the company?

Hey wait a minute — our combined income is just under $200,000 a year. If we go any higher, our tax bracket goes up, and we start having Social Security withheld on our new income; we lose our current deductions for our mortgage, and state and local taxes, and charitable donations.

http://www.newsmax.com/reagan/Obama_right_extremist/2009/04/16/203698.html

Do you reject “federal authority in favor of state or local authority,” or “government authority entirely”? Are you “dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration”?

If so, you are a dangerous, right-wing extremist, according to Obama’s Department of Homeland Security, which bans the use of the word “terrorist” unless it’s applied to us right-wing extremists who, for example, are so extreme as to view the grisly killing of the unborn in their mothers’ wombs as cold-blooded murder.

Are you a veteran returning from Iraq or Afghanistan after risking life and limb to protect your fellow Americans? If so, you are a ticking time bomb likely to be recruited by those dangerous right-wing extremists.

After all, the vaunted Extremism and Radicalization Branch of the Homeland Environment Threat Analysis Division, Department of Homeland Security, warns that you “possess combat skills and experience that are attractive to rightwing extremists,” and these Obama-ite loons are concerned that right-wing extremists “will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to boost their violent capabilities.”

http://moneynews.newsmax.com/streettalk/obama/2009/03/23/194897.html

The administration of President Barack Obama will move to increase oversight of executive pay at all banks, Wall Street firms and possibly other companies as part of a sweeping plan to overhaul financial regulation, The New York Times reported.

Citing unnamed government officials, the newspaper said on its website that the plan was expected to be unveiled this week in preparation for Obama's first foreign summit next month.

...

The new rules will cover all financial institutions, including those not now covered by any pay rules because they are not receiving federal bailout money, The Times said.

http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/stimulus_illegals_jobs/2009/03/09/190028.html

An estimated 300,000 construction jobs paid for by the stimulus plan will go to illegal workers after leading Democrats removed a provision requiring verification of citizenship, a leading immigration expert tells Newsmax.
...

The estimate of 300,000 construction jobs is based on U.S. Census and other studies showing that approximately 15 percent of U.S. construction workers are illegal immigrants.

Construction projects funded by the stimulus bill are expected to generate 2 million jobs. Assuming 15 percent of those workers are illegal, 300,000 illegal aliens would be employed. The actual number could be higher, however, because many of the projects are in states with high immigrant populations, such as Texas, California, and Florida.

...

One economic concern generated by the CIS report: A significant portion of illegal workers’ income is shipped out of the United States to support their families. That money would no longer be available to support economic activity in the United States.

The Council on Foreign Relations, for example, estimates that in 2004 Mexican nationals pumped $22.2 billion back into Mexico’s economy via remittances sent back home. How well U.S. taxpayers tolerate the export of stimulus dollars given the rapidly rising unemployment at home remains to be seen.

...

Camarota says. “And this is money coming from taxpayers. The whole point of the stimulus is to put Americans back to work. And by not including E-Verify, it’s a terrible slap in the face to U.S. construction workers, who are currently experiencing a 10 percent, sometimes even 15 percent unemployment rate.”

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/02/the_ny_post_race_and_cowardice.html

Delonas' depiction of the bullet-riddled primate - an obvious reference to the berserk chimp recently gunned down in Connecticut - as author of the congressional stimulus package reflects, however clumsily, a common view among conservatives: that the monster spending bill was so stupid that even a monkey could have written it.

Yet more than a few people saw it as a bigoted slam against Barack Obama - and let the newspaper know.

"Every line was lit up for several hours," a Post employee told The New York Times. "The phones on the city desk have never rung like that before."

Actually, that's not true. I'm pretty sure it was as bad or worse on the morning of Aug. 31, 2001, when a column I'd written in that morning's Post caused the switchboard to all but melt down.

What had I written? A throwaway column about the funeral of the young pop star Aaliyah, who had just died in a plane crash. I'd found the lavish plans for the public ceremony - the horse-drawn carriage up Fifth Avenue, the white doves - a bit much and used the occasion to comment critically on funerary rituals and the cult of celebrity worship in contemporary America.

Admittedly, it was in questionable taste. But racist? Please.

That wasn't the view of two deejays for a black New York radio station, who whipped listeners into a frenzy. When I reached my desk, more than 200 phone messages waited for me. Most were extremely foul-mouthed and racist. A few contained explicit, violent threats. One caller left a chillingly detailed vow to wait outside the Post building and strangle me.

...

I sat in my Brooklyn apartment listening on the radio to Sharpton promise his followers, "We will bring down anybody who tells us how to mourn our own." This, from the bully whose racist fat mouthing led to the deadly Freddy's Fashion Mart fire in Harlem.

A concerned friend from L.A. called and offered me a plane ticket. "Get out of town," she said. I got.

http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/budget_secrecy/2009/02/25/185611.html

Defense Secretary Robert Gates set the rule, requiring for the first time that each military and civilian official helping prepare the budget sign a non-disclosure statement, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said Wednesday.

The entire Joint Chiefs of Staff signed, promising not to leak information while the budget was being put together. Gates also signed, as did all the high-ranking civilian defense officials working on the budget document, Morrell told a Pentagon press conference.

"He wants to create an environment in which the best possible budget can be built," Morrell said of Gates. "And he believes the only way to do that is to make sure that we are doing this in utter and complete secrecy until that budget is rolled out."
...

"He thinks that by having people pledge not to speak out of school, if you will, on these matters while they are a work in progress, that you'll create a climate in which you can ultimately produce a better product, because people can speak candidly with the confidence that it will not be leaked," Morrell said.

Officials across the federal government also have been known to leak information on a wide range of subjects ahead of time in hopes of sabotaging proposed actions they don't like.
...

Asked how the new requirement to sign the letter squares with Obama's call for greater openness in government, Morrell said: "I do not believe that the president's call for a greater transparency means that we should get rid of classification of materials that are highly sensitive."

A defense official later clarified to reporters that Morrell had misspoken and that the budget is not classified.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-firefighters-gay-pride19-2009feb19,0,4356547.story

A Superior Court jury Tuesday found that four male firefighters were sexually harassed while driving a fire truck in the 2007 gay pride parade and were entitled to a combined $34,300 in damages from the city.

The four sued the city because they were ordered to drive the truck in the 90-minute parade even though firefighters in previous gay-pride parades had reported being taunted with sexual innuendoes.

The jury ruled that each of the four should receive $5,000. One should receive an additional $14,200 because he felt compelled to transfer to a different fire station after the incident, and another will receive $100 as reimbursement for a co-pay for a counseling session.

"The amount itself is not important -- the city disrespected these men and violated their rights," said their attorney, Charles LiMandri.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=425610

Kimberly, Lia's mother, says Lia was told by school officials that if she chose the topic of abortion, she would not be allowed to participate in the speech contest. But both were surprised when Lia's pro-choice teacher had a change of heart.
 
"Her teacher was really impressed by this speech and perhaps moved by it, and therefore her teacher kind of was a real supporter of [Lia] winning for the class," Kimberly notes. "And she had to go through a couple of hoops and get clearance from a couple of other teachers before she could be declared winner of the class."
 
Another controversy erupted when the panel of judges had a supposed big disagreement and one stepped down. Initially Lia was disqualified, but later the panel declared her the winner. She was asked to take out this portion of her speech: "[F]etuses are definitely humans knit together in their mother's womb by their wonderful Creator who knows them all by name."
 
Kimberly says after Lia was told to remove that portion of her speech, she took time to think about her decision and ultimately decided to leave it in.

http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2129

Imagine you had a six-year-old daughter, and that she has a high fever. It’s 1820, and we don’t understand germs or fevers very well. You call the doctor, and the doctor comes to the house. “Please, do something. DO SOMETHING, and help my daughter,” you say.

The doctor takes out a lancet, and makes a small incision in your daughter’s wrist. The theory was that the fever was in the blood itself, and “bleeding” was the only treatment that people in 1820 knew.

It doesn’t work. Your daughter’s fever is still very high. So, you tell the doctor, “DO SOMETHING! You are the doctor.”

The doctor bleeds her some more. And she dies.

And the next day you blame the doctor for not bleeding her MORE and SOONER. But bleeding was the wrong thing to do.

This stimulus is the wrong thing to do. The fact that the first round didn’t work leads me to think we need to stop! But all the desperate economic parents out there say, DO IT MORE! DO IT LONGER! DO IT FAST!

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-prisons10-2009feb10,0,815133.story

Reporting from Sacramento -- A panel of three federal judges, saying overcrowding in state prisons has deprived inmates of their right to adequate healthcare, tentatively ruled Monday that the state must reduce the population in those lockups by as many as 57,000 people.

The judges issued the decision after a trial in two long-running cases brought by inmates to protest the state of medical and mental healthcare in the prisons.
...

Some methods of cutting the population include limiting new admissions, changing policies so parole violators return to prison less frequently, and giving prisoners more time off of their sentences for good behavior and rehabilitation efforts.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&refer=columnist_mccaughey&sid=aLzfDxfbwhzs

Republican Senators are questioning whether President Barack Obama’s stimulus bill contains the right mix of tax breaks and cash infusions to jump-start the economy. Tragically, no one from either party is objecting to the health provisions slipped in without discussion.
...

The bill’s health rules will affect “every individual in the United States” (445, 454, 479). Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system. Having electronic medical records at your fingertips, easily transferred to a hospital, is beneficial. It will help avoid duplicate tests and errors.

But the bill goes further. One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446).
...

Hospitals and doctors that are not “meaningful users” of the new system will face penalties.  “Meaningful user” isn’t defined in the bill. That will be left to the HHS secretary, who will be empowered to impose “more stringent measures of meaningful use over time” (511, 518, 540-541)

What penalties will deter your doctor from going beyond the electronically delivered protocols when your condition is atypical or you need an experimental treatment? The vagueness is intentional. In his book, Daschle proposed an appointed body with vast powers to make the “tough” decisions elected politicians won’t make.

The stimulus bill does that, and calls it the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research (190-192). The goal, Daschle’s book explained, is to slow the development and use of new medications and technologies because they are driving up costs. He praises Europeans for being more willing to accept “hopeless diagnoses” and “forgo experimental treatments,” and he chastises Americans for expecting too much from the health-care system.

...

The Federal Council is modeled after a U.K. board discussed in Daschle’s book. This board approves or rejects treatments using a formula that divides the cost of the treatment by the number of years the patient is likely to benefit. Treatments for younger patients are more often approved than treatments for diseases that affect the elderly, such as osteoporosis.

In 2006, a U.K. health board decreed that elderly patients with macular degeneration had to wait until they went blind in one eye before they could get a costly new drug to save the other eye. It took almost three years of public protests before the board reversed its decision.

I don't usually comment on the news stories I post, but I can't help it today.

http://www.newsmax.com/us/gay_divorce/2009/02/06/179222.html

States that don't recognize gay marriage have begun grappling with how to deal with gay divorces. The state Supreme Court in Rhode Island and judges in Oklahoma and Texas have denied divorces. With Friday's decision, New Jersey joins New York as states where they have been allowed.

"This suggests that will be happening more often in the future," said Bill Duncan, director of the Marriage Law Foundation, a Lehi, Utah, group that opposes gay marriage.

Stephen Hyland, the lawyer who represented La Kia Hammond as a cooperating attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, said this is a signal that the state should simply recognize gay marriages granted in Canada and other places they are legal.

Gay rights activists are pushing the Legislature to become the first in the nation to accept gay marriage. In other states that recognize gay marriage, it's been the result of court rulings.

Note: Probably the stupidest set of arguments for gay marriage I have ever heard. "It's safe to recognize gay marriage because it'll actually strengthen, not weaken the institution! Oh, by the way, it also just makes sense to recognize gay marriage, because otherwise it'll be much harder for them to divorce! The 'gay marriage' used for publicity in the Massachusetts legalization lasted about as long as this one... less than five years.

http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/democrats_gop_mortgage/2009/02/05/178903.html

The plan by Nevada Republican John Ensign would have encouraged banks to issue mortgages with interest rates of 4 to 4.5 percent. The government-controlled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would have bought the mortgages on the secondary market. Jumbo loans would have been ineligible.

Democrats killed the idea Thursday night by a 62-35 vote.

The plan also contained an assortment of expensive tax cuts such as cutting the bottom 10 percent income tax rate in half for two years.

New York Democrat Charles Schumer said the plan was too expensive and would provide a windfall to banks charging fees to refinance mortgages.

Note: What can I even say here? The plan is too expensive compared with what, a near 1 trillion dollar "stimulus package" that won't affect the economy? And how come it's bad to offer an option that will allow banks to make money only if they start offering loans, but it's good to just hand them money and hope that it'll somehow make them want to start offering loans?

By the way, we recently refinanced to within that loan percentage margin due to good equity and an excellent credit rating. If we take the money we're saving with the lower interest rate and pair it with the rough savings estimate of cutting the bottom tax rates as suggested days ago, we'd end up with something like $6,000 more a year instead of a one-time $1,000 tax credit for that same year. And yes, we're not rich... we're just a couple hundred dollars a year shy of qualifying for fuel assistance and have a significantly lower food budget than what "poor" people get in food stamps. So how much more could a loan modification and the tax cuts help those who are choosing between food and shelter, all those minorities with bad loans that the Dems pretend to care for? Will we throw it all away just because the banks might earn their own money instead of having the government hand it to them?