Collective Sigh

Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glint on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you wake in the morning hush,
I am the swift, uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft starlight at night.

Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there, I do not sleep.
Do not stand at my grave and cry.
I am not there, I did not die!

Mary Frye (1932)

-- 47 percent believe that Saddam Hussein helped plan and support the hijackers who attacked the U.S. on September 11, 2001 (up six percentage points from November).

-- 44 percent actually believe that several of the hijackers who attacked the U.S. on September 11 were Iraqis (up significantly from 37% in November).

-- 36 percent believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when the U.S. invaded (down slightly from 38% in November).

A Republican lawmaker in Maine has introduced a bill to prohibit abortions based on the sexual orientation of the unborn baby.

State Rep. Brian Duprey wants the Legislature to forbid a woman from ending a pregnancy because the fetus is homosexual.

He said the bill looks into the future in case scientists find what he described as a "homosexual gene."

"I have heard from women who told me that if they found out that they were carrying a child with the gay gene, then they would abort. I think this is wrong," said Duprey, who got the idea while listening to the Rush Limbaugh Show.

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My sister-in-law lost her battle with cancer early this morning.

She beat that sucker a little over a year ago - pounded an inoperable tumor with chemo and radiation until it gave up and went away.

But the Big C snuck back; she got the news just a week ago.

The doctor gave her 2 months to a year, and told her if there was anything she wanted to do, she'd better do it now.

She said she'd always wanted to go to Disney World, and we were in the midst of making arrangements for a trip.

She was sweet and gullible and naive and trusting - and we loved her dearly.

Give Walt a hug for me, darlin'.

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The ruling by Pinellas Circuit Court Judge George Greer will allow the husband, Michael Schiavo, to order the tube removed at 1 p.m. on March 18. In the meantime, the woman's parents, who want her kept alive, are expected to ask another court to block the order from taking effect.

The judge wrote that he was no longer comfortable granting delays in the long-running family feud, which has been going on for nearly seven years and has been waged in every level of Florida's court system. He said the case must end.

(snip)

The judge made his decision after pleadings from the parents that they need more time to pursue additional medical tests which might prove their daughter has more mental capabilities than previously thought.

A leading Vatican cardinal also has weighed in on behalf of keeping Terri Schiavo alive.

"If Mr. Schiavo legally succeeded in provoking the death of his wife, this would not only be tragic in itself, but it would be a serious step toward legally approving euthanasia in the United States," Cardinal Renato Martino, the head of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, told Vatican Radio on Thursday.

Dell has had a tough time of late. Its consistent, double-digit revenue gains put it only billions ahead of hardware rivals that have barely managed to break even.

It took more than old-fashioned southern hospitality to convince Dell to build a new computer manufacturing plant in North Carolina. In fact, it took about $240m in tax incentives and loads of wrangling to put Dell in the Tar Heel State.

Dell, an obvious candidate for copious amounts of government aid, will put up its third US plant in the Triad area of North Carolina. The plant, set to open in the fall of 2005, will employ close to 700 workers in its first year and then make room for up to 1,500 employees within five years. The main role of the new facility will be to supply East Coast businesses and consumers with Dell desktops.

(snip)

Last week, the North Carolina General Assembly cleared the way for a $242m incentive package for Dell. The deal gives Dell a tax credit for each computer or consumer device produced in the state. Dell will receive a $15 per unit credit in 2006 and just a $6.25 credit from 2007 to 2019.

Dell, however, is making serious sacrifices to earn this package. It must, for example, pay 50 per cent of the health care costs for its employees. Ouch! In addition, Dell can only lay off 40 per cent of the employees to still qualify for the tax incentives.

The average salary for a Dell worker at the new plant is expected to be about $28,000. That's about what Michael Dell makes while going to the bathroom in the morning.

It's awesome to see states bend over backwards to make sure they have low-paying jobs for years to come. Lord knows, a patriotic company like Dell needs the help. The North Carolina plant may leave Dell with more US workers than foreign staffers for the first time in a long while.

Any reporter who has covered Dell for a couple of years has heard the stories about the company's iron-fisted negotiating tactics. Dell's size lets it put enormous pressure on partners, suppliers and rivals. Now it seems Dell has extended these Wal-Mart like ways to hammering entire states.

Documents unsealed by the North Carolina Department of Commerce show that Dell beat on the state during negotiations around the construction of a new plant in the Triad region, according to a report from the News and Observer. Dell boldly asked government officials to absolve it of paying any taxes at all and demanded that it be considered for government computer purchases. Dell also tried to put patriotic pressure on North Carolina to do anything to keep jobs in the US - an almost comical ploy given that Dell isn't terribly patriotic itself. It employs more foreign workers than it does here in the US.

US conducts successful missile defense flight

The US military conducted a missile defense flight on Thursday, with an interceptor missile successfully intercepting and destroying a short-range target missile, the Pentagon announced.

The target missile was launched from US Navy's Pacific Missile Range Facility at Barking Sands, Kauai, and the interceptor missile, a Standard Missile 3, was launched one minute later from the USS Lake Erie at its patrol area located more than 160 km from Kauai.

Two minutes after the interceptor was launched, it hit the target, Henry "Trey" Obering, director of the Defense Department's Missile Defense Agency, said in a statement.

"BACK OFF"

 

Name: Randy
Age: Five years
Weight: Approximately twenty pounds
Sex: No. He's neutered. Explains the expression.
Likes: Food, sleeping
Dislikes: Cameras
Favorite Game: The Four Yard Litter Toss
Favorite Website: My Cat Hates You

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Yep, there it is - right on the White House "Kid's Page".

Barney ogling Miss Beazley's tempting little Scottish Terrier butt.

Have they no shame?

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During his trip to Germany on Wednesday, the main highlight of George W. Bush's trip was meant to be a "town hall"-style meeting with average Germans. But with the German government unwilling to permit a scripted event with questions approved in advance, the White House has quietly put the event on ice. Was Bush afraid the event might focus on prickly questions about Iraq and Iran rather than the rosy future he's been touting in Europe this week?

To avoid that messy scenario, the White House requested that rules similar to those applied during Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's visit two weeks ago also be used in Mainz. Before meeting with students at Paris's Institute of Political Sciences, which preens the country's elite youth for future roles in government, Rice's staff insisted on screening and approving any questions to be asked by students. One question rejected was that of Benjamin Barnier, the 24-year-old son of France's foreign minister, who wanted to ask: "George Bush is not particularly well perceived in the world, particularly in the Middle East. Can you do something to change that?" Instead, the only question of Barnier's that got approval was the question of whether Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority might create a theocratic government based on the Iranian model?

The Germans, though, insisted that a free forum should be exactly that. Wolfgang Ischinger, Germany's Ambassador to the United States, explained to the New York Times last week: "We told them, don't get upset with us if they ask angry questions."

As an ersatz for the town hall meeting on Wednesday, Bush will now meet with a well-heeled group of so-called "young leaders." Close to 20 participants will participate in the exclusive round to be held in the opulent Mozart Hall of a former royal palace in Mainz, giving them the opportunity for a close encounter with the president. The chat is being held under the slogan: "A new chapter for trans-Atlantic relations." The aim of the meeting is to give these "young leaders" a totally different impression of George W. Bush. In order to guarantee an open exchange, the round has been closed to journalists -- ensuring that any embarrassments will be confined to a small group.

Bush says he "wouldn't answer the marijuana question ... 'cause I don't want some little kid doing what I tried."

"But you gotta understand, I want to be president, I want to lead. I want to set -- Do you want your little kid to say, 'Hey daddy, President Bush tried marijuana, I think I will?' " he said.

Internist Peter Basch said he was in Costa Rica recently when he checked his e-mail -- yes, while on vacation -- and learned that one of his patients was seeking more blood pressure pills. In less than a minute, Basch said, he sent a refill order to a pharmacy on Capitol Hill.

"For things that people actually leave their home or leave their office to come and see me for . . . many of these could be managed with a type of e-mail interaction," Basch said.

In fact, he said, "perhaps as many as 50 percent of the people I see each day could be dealt with appropriately using virtual techniques," including at-home devices to track blood pressure, weight and blood glucose.

So why don't more doctors use this approach, and why does Basch swap e-mails with only about 5 percent of his patients while charging nothing for the service? Money is part of the answer.

"If I used virtual communication techniques as often as I felt was appropriate, my practice would close its doors because it would go broke within a week," Basch said. That's because he participates in managed care networks, and the insurers who run them pay doctors only for face-to-face contacts with patients. (more)

CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield issued a similarly cautious statement: "We are aware of a number of pilot programs around the country that involve e-mail consultations between physicians and patients. . . . We have discussed the concept, and expect to explore opportunities to become involved in the future."

AARP urges you to judge critically the motivations behind statements made against AARP. For example, whenever you see attempts to discredit AARP presented on Fox News Channel or other media outlets like talk radio shows that regularly carry the neoconservative lobbying group messages, AARP urges you to consider these important background facts:

• USA Next is a lobbying group that "has poured poured millions of dollars into Republican policy battles" as reported in the New York Times.

• As reported by UPI, USA Next has hired a public relations firm with "plans to spend as much as $10 million to counterattack Democrats opposed to changing Social Security, has hired Chris LaCivita, a former Marine who advised Swift Vets on its media campaign and helped write its potent commercials attacking Bush's opponent, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass."

• Creative Response Concepts of Alexandria, Virginia is the public relations firm hired by USA Next. As reported by PR Watch, in 2004 "this firm used right-wing blogs and news sites to turn a CBS report casting doubt about President George W. Bush's National Guard services into a potential black eye for both the network and the Democrats."

GEORGE Bush has banned Camilla Parker Bowles from the White House - because she is a divorcee.

The unprecedented snub has effectively sabotaged Charles's plan to take his bride on a Royal tour of America later this year.

The trip would have been the pair's first official tour as a married couple.

But the US President - a notoriously right-wing Christian and reformed alcoholic - told aides it was "inappropriate" for him to be playing host to the newly-weds, who are both divorcees.

The decision was made even though the late President Ronald Reagan was divorced.

A Government insider said: "It was relayed to us from Washington that Mrs Parker Bowles would not be welcome at the White House.

"The Americans are aware that the visit will be subject to a lot of media attention and did not want the President drawn into what they view to be a public relations exercise.

As George W. Bush was first moving onto the national political stage, he often turned for advice to an old friend who secretly taped some of their private conversations, creating a rare record of the future president as a politician and a personality.

In the last several weeks, that friend, Doug Wead, an author and former aide to Mr. Bush's father, disclosed the tapes' existence to a reporter and played about a dozen of them.

Mr. Wead said he recorded his conversations with the president in part because he thought he might be asked to write a book for the campaign. He also wanted a clear account of any requests Mr. Bush made of him. But he said his main motivation in making the tapes, which he originally intended to be released only after his own death, was to leave the nation a unique record of Mr. Bush.

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Bill would require all Californians to have insurance

If you drive a car, the law requires you to have auto insurance. By the same token, shouldn't the state also force you to have health insurance?

That's the thinking behind legislation expected to be introduced this week that would require Californians to carry basic health insurance. Those who failed to comply would have their wages garnisheed or lose their tax refunds.

The bill's authors, Assemblymen Joe Nation, D-San Rafael, and Keith Richman, R-Northridge (Los Angeles County), hope a mandate will reduce cost burdens both on those who are already insured and on the doctors and hospitals that care for the uninsured.

"We believe a basic level of health care is a right, but we also believe it's a responsibility of individuals to take care of themselves and not be in a position where they require society to pay for the cost of their emergency room visit," Nation said.

Instead of making employers pick up the health insurance tab, the bill by Nation and Richman would put the responsibility on individuals.

While Nation acknowledged that affordability is a key problem, he also said that many young people don't have insurance because they think they can get away without it.

Unlike single-payer plans, such as one proposed by state Sen. Sheila Kuehl, D-Santa Monica, Nation and Richman's approach relies greatly on the insurance industry. Their plan addresses the affordability issue by streamlining the enrollment process for government health programs for the poor, including Medi-Cal and Healthy Families.

In addition, it would provide subsidies to help low-income people who do not qualify for Medi-Cal buy insurance.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a possible White House candidate in 2008, joined 2004 nominee John Kerry and other Democrats Thursday in urging that Election Day be made a federal holiday to encourage voting.

For President Bush Social Security reform tops a busy second-term agenda, but yesterday's stop on his campaign-style reform push brought little more than a collective ho-hum from Granite Staters.

White House aides collected empty chairs in an echoing Pease International Tradeport hangar before Bush took the stage since only about half of the 2,000 free tickets were taken.

"Certainly the personal account doesn't fix the system. There needs to be better reforms, more meaningful reforms than that."

A new study based on more than three decades of U.S. data suggests that giving flu shots to the elderly has not saved any lives.

Most of the 36,000 people who die each year of flu-related causes are elderly and the nation's strategy has focused on getting shots to them, as well as other high-risk groups.

if 70 per cent of schoolchildren were vaccinated, the elderly would be protected without flu shots. The strategy would require 42 million doses of flu vaccine. Even during this season's shortage, there were 57 million doses available.

U.S. intelligence officials warned Wednesday that the threat of al Qaeda or other terrorist groups attacking the United States was still imminent and likely would be in the form of a car bomb or other low-tech weapon.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday Syria was "unfortunately on a path right now where relations are not improving, but are worsening."

Rice did not blame Syria for Monday's bomb attack that, but she did challenge Syria's long-standing claim that its troops were needed in Lebanon to provide security.

"There is no doubt that the conditions created by Syria's presence there have created a destabilized situation in Lebanon," she said.

In a thinly-veiled jab at Washington, he said accusations that Syria is supporting terrorism are akin to claims, later disproved, that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction in the lead-up to the war.

Almost exciting live-blogging

I had planned to spend the evening doing some exciting, thrill-a-minute live-blogging of the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, but was distracted when one of my own dogs developed a case of diarrhea.

At such times, I’m grateful I have Chihuahuas and not Great Danes.

I shoveled some Pepto Bismol into the dog, cleaned up the mess(es), sat back down just in time to see “Best In Show” and just in time to wonder why a damned rolling dust-mop Pekinese won the Toy Division…..again.

Here is a Chihuahua –





Here is a Pekinese –

Roomba!

I don't know what these judges are thinking.

The President has also signed into law health savings accounts (HSAs), which combine low-cost, high-deductible health insurance with tax-free savings accounts to pay for health care expenses and save for future medical needs.

New health plans worsen hospitals' bad debt
Because many new health plans carry higher deductibles, Baptist Health South Florida has found it more difficult to collect on its debts from patients.

The south Miami-Dade County nonprofit hospital system piled up $131 million in bad debt in 2004, an increase of 254 percent from 1999. With high-deductible health savings accounts (HSAs) being introduced with President George W. Bush's backing and studies showing employers shifting more health care costs to workers, Baptist and other Florida hospitals worry that the stack of unpaid bills will only grow higher.

"We see over time that, as patients are required to pay more out of pocket, our bad debt goes up," said Eric Shatanof, Baptist's corporate VP for managed care and network development. "There are a large percentage of the patient portions that people just don't pay."

If the guy hadn't changed his name and registered on gay porn sites, this would have been one of the dullest hullabaloos of all time. And besides, let he who has never registered with a gay military porn site under a different name cast the first stone.

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A security screener at Newark Liberty International Airport failed to spot a butcher knife in a passenger's pocketbook and was removed from the post for retraining, officials said.

Katrina Bell, 27, had cleared security and was waiting with her sister to board a flight on Saturday morning when she discovered she was carrying a knife.

Bell had put the knife in her bag "just in case" before going on a blind date earlier that week, her sister and travel companion, Tikisha Bell Gowens, 30, said in The Sunday Star-Ledger of Newark.

"She said to me, 'Oh my God, I have this butcher knife in my pocketbook,'" Bell Gowens said. "My first thought was, 'They're going to think we're terrorists.'"

The North Carolina women immediately told airport personnel, who summoned police and officials of the Transportation Security Administration, which employs the screeners.

The women were not charged.

The screener was removed from the checkpoint and will undergo remedial training, TSA spokeswoman Ann Davis said.

The new Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, said in an interview this weekend that the war with the Israelis is effectively over and that the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, is speaking "a different language" to the Palestinians. Mr. Sharon's commitment to withdraw from Gaza and dismantle all Israeli settlements there and four in the West Bank, despite "how much pressure is on him from the Israeli Likud rightists," Mr. Abbas said, "is a good sign to start with" on the road to real peace.
"And now he has a partner," Mr. Abbas said.

(snip)

Mr. Abbas said the war with the Israelis would be over "when the Israelis declare that they will comply with the agreement I made in Sharm el Sheik, and today our comrades in Hamas and Jihad said they are committed to the truce, the cooling down of the whole situation, and I believe we will start a new era."

On the program that day we were discussing the report that some Europeans were disgusted with the Super Bowl commercial of American soldiers getting applause in an airport. The critics thought it too extreme in its patriotism and a possible incitement to further war.

Eight medical malpractice lawsuits have been filed by patients who said a doctor at New Hanover Regional Medical Center performed one type of gastric bypass when they had agreed to a different one.

(snip)

The lawsuits claim that Olchowski told patients he would perform a surgery called Roux-en-Y, but instead performed a minigastric bypass.

Both types of surgery make the stomach smaller and allow food to bypass part of the small intestine. Patients thus feel full more quickly and, by bypassing part of the intestine, fewer calories are absorbed and weight loss is achieved. The difference between the two surgeries is how the stomach and intestines are attached.

Health insurance often covers Roux-en-Y, which costs about $25,000, while it does not cover minigastric bypass, which costs $15,000 to $20,000, in North Carolina.

Attorneys Jennifer Umbaugh and Melissa Pollock, who represent six of the patients, said their clients had serious complications from the minigastric bypass, such as stomach ulcers and continual nausea and vomiting. All of them had a second surgery to convert the bypass into a Roux-en-Y.

(snip)

Olchowski, 57, resigned from New Hanover Regional's medical staff July 1, 2003. He now practices general surgery at Ionia County Memorial Hospital in Michigan.

Well, you have to get cleared. You have to -- just like anybody else that comes to the White House, you have to have your full name, your Social Security number and your birth date. So you have to be cleared just like anybody else.

”And I think everybody understands what the 'next steps' mean," Rice told reporters after a meeting with NATO foreign ministers and European Union officials.

Privatizers say the trust fund doesn't count because it's invested in U.S. government bonds, which are "meaningless i.o.u.'s."

Some in our country think that Social Security is a trust fund -- in other words, there's a pile of money being accumulated. That's just simply not true. The money -- payroll taxes going into the Social Security are spent. They're spent on benefits and they're spent on government programs. There is no trust. We're on the ultimate pay-as-you-go system -- what goes in comes out. And so, starting in 2018, what's going in -- what's coming out is greater than what's going in. It says we've got a problem. And we'd better start dealing with it now. The longer we wait, the harder it is to fix the problem.

President Bush is coming to Raleigh on Thursday and bringing along U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole as an example of the rare politician who won office while pledging to change Social Security.

And, no way am I for privatizing Social Security. I support the concept of allowing workers to contribute small portions of their own Social Security in the market because it would negate the need to nearly double payroll taxes on future workers to fund benefits.

Bush will be host for an hourlong conversation with business leaders, seniors and young people who support his plan

But he picks a state where five of the seven Republican U.S. House members are lukewarm on the idea -- at best.

Only Reps. Sue Myrick of Charlotte and Patrick McHenry of Cherryville favor the accounts.

The others? Not sure. They are getting mail and calls from people who are worried about Social Security, especially the 900,000 members of the state AARP, most of whom worry that change would mean reduced benefits.

Rep. Howard Coble of Greensboro said he finds the idea of personal accounts "inoffensive" but does not see the system as in crisis.

Rep. Walter Jones of Farmville said he'll wait and see what comes out of Congress.

Even Rep. Virginia Foxx of Banner Elk, who praised Bush's State of the Union address as magnificent, is not sold on private accounts.

(snip)

Among the last to hear about Bush's visit were Reps. Bob Etheridge, Brad Miller and David Price, the three Democratic House members who represent the Triangle. They had not received tickets as of late Tuesday.

More than two-thirds of 1,010 adults contacted from Friday to Sunday said it would be a good idea to limit benefits for wealthier retirees and for higher income workers to pay Social Security taxes on all their wages.

You lose fourteen pounds
And what do you get?
Another year older
And deeper in debt….

If I haven’t lost at least another fourteen by the time I’m fifty-nine, feel free to call me the laziest, wimpiest critter on the planet.

Other hopes:
*Watching the kid receive her master’s degree and/or embarking on a satisfying, successful career.
*Bush and his neocon buddies thoroughly disgraced and out of office forever and ever amen.
*Peace on earth
*Good will toward men

Enough of this. I’ve got to go rest up so I can blow out all these candles.




Peace, ya'll

NY Times- President Bush's budget would more than double the co-payment charged to many veterans for prescription drugs and would require some to pay a new fee of $250 a year for the privilege of using government health care, administration officials said Sunday.

The next time big bidness and/or the administration parade you around in public to show their hypocritical "support", it's time for something like this -

John McCain's 5 1/2 years of captivity in North Vietnam were divided into two phases. Early on, this son and grandson of high-ranking Naval officers was accorded relatively privileged status. Then he refused early release--which he saw as a public relations stunt by his captors--insisting that POWs held longer than him should be granted their freedom first. Thereafter, McCain was treated much more severely, but he also had an opportunity to bond with his fellow prisoners. Those experiences strengthened his resolve and eased his transition back into civilian life.