*** begin quote ***

Dear Ferdinand,

I just now voted for the Affordable Health Care for America Act. I want you to know about this development and what the bill means for you. This bill would provide secure and stable health coverage regardless of whether you change jobs or are between jobs, ensure Americans will never be denied care if they get sick, and extend coverage to those not well served by the current system.

This is a historic vote and the furthest we have come toward providing affordable and quality health coverage to all Americans.

Once this bill becomes law, it immediately would eliminate cases where insurance benefits run out because of an expensive illness, would allow young adults to remain on their parents’ insurance through age 26, and would shrink the Medicare prescription doughnut hole.

The bill would strengthen and extend existing programs. For example, those who have health insurance through their employers would benefit from caps on yearly out of pocket costs. Under the legislation, Medicare would be intact, only better – recipients would benefit from free preventive care and better primary care. Click here to read more about what the bill would do for you.

Reform would preserve the relationship between families and their doctors and shift to a focus on healthy outcomes and rewarding physicians for treating the whole patient.

It would do all these things without adding to the deficit, while it would hold down costs for families in the future.

This bill is the culmination of one of the most open and deliberative processes in recent memory. During the past few years, Congressional committees held more than 53 committee hearings, debated and voted on almost 240 amendments, and considered health reform for 167 hours. We have held thousands of town meetings, read hundreds of thousands of letters, and met with health care experts and patients. Many of the amendments addressed concerns raised by constituents, such as an amendment I championed to help small businesses pool together to purchase insurance at group rates, an idea brought to me by a Monmouth County small businessman.

When I considered health reform, I talked with patients, seniors, doctors, nurses, small business owners, and others to learn their perspectives. I received and responded to thousands of letters from Central New Jersey residents. The stories I have heard highlight the fact that health care reform is about real people who are disserved by the broken insurance system.

For more information and resources about the Affordable Health Care for America Act, including the text of the full bill and a bill summary, please visit my website. There you can also see my remarks during the debate on the House floor.

After carefully analyzing and reviewing this bill, I believe it will improve the quality of life and the economy of nearly all families and of the nation as a whole. I would not support it if I did not think so. I look forward to working toward completion of meaningful health care reform legislation and sending it to the President for his signature.

Sincerely,

RUSH HOLT

Member of Congress

P.S. Just a reminder: I always want to hear from you, but please don’t reply to this e-mail. Instead, please email me through my website at www.holt.house.gov, or call me at 1-87-RUSH-HOLT (1-877-874-4658) to let me know what’s on your mind. Please also note that you may unsubscribe from this list by clicking on the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of this email.

*** end quote ***

Welll, when it comes time for reelection, I plan to campaign to replace you! Cutting Medicare with 30% more people coming on to it. And, inserting the Federal Gooferment into my wife’s medical care is unacceptable.

You, sir, may have done what you think gets you reelected, but I think you might have miscalculated.

And, please don’t blow smoke where the sun doesn’t shine.

This law if signed will be a national disaster!

# # # # #

http://www.321gold.com/editorials/casey/casey110509.html

Why Gold Has a LONG Way to Go
Jeff Clark
Casey’s Gold & Resource Report
Nov 5, 2009

*** begin quote ***

Now ask yourself the same thing: how many of your family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers are buying gold and silver coins? Are any of them giving you hot stock tips about a fantastic gold producer, or telling you about the latest gold discovery made by a company in China? Have any fellow investors told you they’re dumping their brokers because they can select gold stocks better on their own? Anyone telling you they’re going to night school to learn the gold mining business?

*** end quote ***

Gold is the money of a thousand years. With the Gooferment spending us into oblivion, how else does one preserve wealth? And, after the “inflation tax” and “inheritance tax”, what’s left?

Argh!

# # # # #

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Freddie-Mac-posts-5-billion-rb-3083454207.html?x=0&.v=3

Freddie Mac posts $5 billion loss
* On 7:00 pm EST, Friday November 6, 2009
By Al Yoon

*** begin quote ***

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Freddie Mac (NYSE:FRE – News; NYSE:FRE – News), the second largest provider of U.S. residential mortgage funding, on Friday posted a loss of $5 billion in the third quarter and predicted it would need more government support amid a “prolonged deterioration” in housing.

*** end quote ***

Well, isn’t that just great!

If it was a real business, we could just let it go to bankruptcy court.

Another “gooferment sponsored entity” that’s a rat hole for the taxpayer to pump more money into.

I’m sure the congress critters will certainly give them more money we don’t have.

Argh!

And, what’s the impact on the country, the taxpayers, and the people.

# # # # #

http://irisheagle.blogspot.com/2009/11/fee-paying-schools-cost-or-savings-for.html

Friday, November 06, 2009

Let’s pay more taxes to punish the rich!

*** begin quote ***

This morning’s Irish Times reports that taxpayers forked out €100m to “support” private fee-paying schools. Sounds like a scandal in these economically straitened times. Yet …

*** end quote ***

I’d suggest that the problem is that the taxpayer is being forced to fund yet another activity. Education is the parent’s responsibility. Not the taxpayers’. We taxpayers don’t get the decision to have the children so why are we forced to pay to educate them. Education should be a valuable service that parents should be willing to pay for. Then teachers could earn what they are worth. If we are concerned about “bad parents”, that’s a different issue. Here in New Jersey, old folks are being forced to leave the State due to high taxes. It’s just not “fair”. Argh! We need a new model based of freedom and liberty.

# # # # #

http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Irish-authorities-swoop-to-seize-7000-samurai-swords-69287017.html

Irish authorities seize 7,000 samurai swords
By KENNETH HAYNES, IrishCentral.com Staff Writer
Published Thursday, November 5, 2009, 11:20 AM
Updated Thursday, November 5, 2009, 12:03 PM

*** begin quote ***

7,000 samurai swords were seized in police raids in Dublin last Monday.

Story / Samurai swords banned in Ireland / Click here

Gardai (Irish police) carried out several smash and grab raids in Dublin’s north inner city last Monday and confiscated 7,000 Samurai swords.

*** end quote ***

The criminal class isn’t going to be dissuaded by pieces of paper. Look at “restraining orders”, DWI convictions, or drug prohibition. That works well. Right?

Argh!

# # # # #

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=114854

The American way of abandonment
Posted: November 02, 2009
Pat Buchanan

*** begin quote ***

But what does it avail us to insult these people who have cast their lot with us, many of whom will, with families and friends, pay a far more terrible price than we if we lose these wars?

And if we are going to abandon these people, as we have so many others in the past, let us at least tell them, and ourselves, the truth. We didn’t know what we were getting into. We don’t have the stomach for a long war. We’re sorry we got you into this. Your big mistake was in trusting us. You folks should have known better.

*** end quote ***

Washington was right. Trade with all; alliances with none.

That would have been more honest. I remember that we screwed the Hungarians in their 1956 revolt against the Russians. Voice of America incited them and the gooferment left them hanging out to dry.

Argh!

# # # # #

http://www.lifenews.com/state4544.html

The View Hosts Fail to Grasp the Real Immorality of Planned Parenthood, Abortion
by Colleen Raezler
November 4, 2009

*** begin quote ***

ABC’s “View” host Barbara Walters brought up Johnson’s story, calling it “controversial” and Behar quickly denounced Planned Parenthood for making money off abortions. She called it “gross” and “obnoxious” before she stated, “I don’t see abortions as a profit-making industry. I think that is the real immorality of it.”

*** end quote ***

Well, sometimes a stopped clock is right.

I find Joy’s unquestioning “liberalism” (as well as Elizabeth’s Republican Kool Aid), “unintelligible”.

Woopi usually is spot on most times.

In this case, everyone seems to look askance at profiting from killing whatever; they would debate what exactly was being killed. But we all in our hearts know what it is … a baby!

# # # # #

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=114936

The truth about journalists’ bias
Posted: November 04, 2009

John Stossel is a longtime award-winning broadcast journalist who joins Fox News Oct. 19. He’s the author of “Give Me a Break” and of “Myth, Lies, and Downright Stupidity.”

*** begin quote ***

It is odd that this is a news story. In August, AFP hired me to do the very same thing. I give the money to charity. The Times didn’t call that “shameful.”

*** end quote ***

Anyone with eyes can see the bias.

I’m hoping that Fox turns Stossel loose!

# # # # #

INDEX CARD NOVEL: Never move the refrigerator

He was hit again in the face. His family was in various other rooms being tortured or worse. “Where’s the stuff, old man”? Smack. He pretended to be out. Water was splashed on him. He thought back a few weeks.

+++

All of the media outlets had gone to commercial-free coverage. The Dow had dropped 4,000 points and trading was been suspended on Wall Street. Countries transferred their reserves from the US Dollar. Even the mighty Chinese couldn’t staunch the flow. They were holding 5T$ and were just a ruined as the US. Oil futures climbed to $5000 a barrel before trading was suspended. A national bank holiday! The grocery stores are cleared. The gas pumps dry up. Trucks delivering goods are stuck at truck stops. Inner city areas are zones. The Interstate becomes a parking lot.

The fat old man had a plan to shelter in place. He had his “stuff”. He had caches. He had guns. But he also had to sleep.

The gang had him.

+++

The beatings continued. He’d had the survival school training. He knew he’d break but he had to make the act believable. He passed out again.

When he came to, in the time before it was obvious, he thought about a year ago. He told his family “Whatever anyone does, no one is to move the refrigerator except me.” Everyone shrugged; who cared. He did!

+++

The screams from the bedrooms were getting louder. He couldn’t figure how anyone was going to escape this. It was time to give in. Sucked into a microscopic black hole? No, but it could seem like that.

“OK”, the fat old man gasped. “Where is it?” “You’ll let the others go?” “Sure” “Under the refrigerator” In a flash, the gang leader was at the fridge pulling at it. “You better not be lying, you fat piece of …”

+++

The fat old white guy was an injineer. Small common household Liquefied Petroleum Gas canisters in the basement were intended for cooking and heating. A bunch of conventional pipe bombs strapped to them was an “insurance policy”. It was intended to be detonated if they were driven out of their safe house. There was a detonator buried at the property line. If he couldn’t have it, no one would enjoy it. As an after thought, he thought about the story where a survivor planned for mutants to take over his shelter. He added a pressure switch under the refrigerator.

He’d done his best. His family was no longer suffering and he’d cleaned up his part of the neighborhood.

Bad guys 8; fat old white guy 42.

And the motorcycles, they rode in on.

+++

Moral of the story: Never move the refrigerator

# # # # #

I “think” the TEOTWAWKI trigger will be the Obama “economy”. Or lack there of. “Health Care” will bust the budget. “Cap and Tax” will both bust the budget and kill economic activity. Pricing oil in Euros will be the equivalent of a tax increase, damping the economy, and killing the dollar. (Remember we killed Saddam for even suggesting pricing oil in gold.) Government Motors, all the bank takeovers. AND, tah dah, the FED is secretly monetizing the debt (i.e., use saw the shadow buyers of Treasury debt who turn around and sell it the NEXT DAY). Argh!

# # # # #

http://www.lewrockwell.com/reed/reed167.html

Surprised by Disaster
by Fred Reed

*** begin quote ***

America’s problem is not that its generals prepare for the last war, but that they don’t prepare for it, and then fight it again the same way.

*** end quote ***

Too true!

I happened to watch “Gods and Generals” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gods_and_Generals_%28film%29 And, like “The Patriot”, it demonstrates the stupidity of the leadership. The strategy and tactics developed for war in Europe made for needless casualties in the American Revolution and the Second War of Independence aka the War of Northern Aggression aka the “Civil War”.

How many casualties are we taking in Iraq and AfPak?

Argh!

# # # # #

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=114878

What really caused the Great Depression
Posted: November 04, 2009
Walter E. Williams

*** begin quote ***

Professor Hanke says that the lesson to be drawn from business cycle history is that, if left to run their natural course, severe downturns are followed by rapid snapbacks. The 1921 recession is a good example where wholesale prices, industrial production and manufacturing employment fell by 30 percent or more and reached their low in mid-1921. There was little government intervention, at least by today’s standards, and the economy recovered naturally; and by early 1922, it had fully recovered and the nation was off to the Roaring Twenties.

*** end quote ***

So what are the bozos in DC doing?

Yeah, raising taxes, spending us into debt, and making “rules”.

Argh!

# # # # #

http://www.bargaineering.com/articles/your-take-are-we-out-of-the-recession.html/

Your Take: Are We Out Of The Recession?
by Jim Wang

*** begin quote ***

Yesterday, the Department of Commerce reported that the annualized GDP (gross domestic product) grew to 3.5% in third quarter. This is significant because, by definition, a recession is two straight quarters of shrinking GDP. A 3.5% increase in GDP would mean, at least technically, the recession was over. Four straight quarters of negative GDP growth, the worst of which was the first quarter of 2009 (-6.4%), has finally come to an end.

Hooray! Right?

*** end quote ***

I’d point out that the weak dollar should influence our judgments. If the stock market goes up 50% but the dollar goes down 50% versus gold, the Euro, or some other “standard”, then did the market go up at all? Like fish in a tank, we can’t sense anything but water. Bad metaphor, can’t think of a good one. It’s like a football team gaining ground but the “year” gets redefined as the game proceeds. IT feels like we are losing ground on a “financial treadmill”. AND, give the gooferment’s tendency to make stuff up (i.e., jobs “saved” or “created”), especially if it’s a nebulously defined concept, I’m cynical about being “out of the recession”. The Titanic had its ice deliver but didn’t sink right away. Maybe we’re seeing the same thing. All that printing press money has to come home to roost.

# # # # #

http://tinyurl.com/yhnplmb  

OH: Woman, 70, kills intruder at motel
Columbus Dispatch

“The 70-year-old woman who shot a would-be robber at a North Side motel last night is attending the All-American Quarter Horse Congress today and feels sick about the shooting, according to her son. … Sgt. Eric Pilya of the homicide squad said the woman was in a motel room with four or five others and they’d cracked open the door to get fresh air. Pilya said a man barged into the room, demanding money from those inside. Police said the woman, from southern Ohio, grabbed a gun that she had in the room and shot Wayne Winston, 25, of Columbus, who staggered into the parking lot of the motel and died. … No charges had been filed. Pilya said it’s likely that the case will be presented to a Franklin County grand jury to see whether the woman should be charged.” (10/22/09)

# – # – #

Note the equalizing effect of a gun old woman versus young man. Equalized!

# # # # #

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=114194

Imagine a world without America
Barry Farber

*** begin quote ***

America took the lead and founded the United Nations, fully allowing for America to be out-voted as that great “Parliament of Man” became a VIP lounge for dictators, aggressors, oppressors, thugs, thieves, sexual predators and other varieties of truly awful people.

*** end quote ***

# – # – #

No good deed goes unpunished.

Time to send that packing! We should get out now.

# # # # #

Admit your failures, take credit for them, embrace them, and own them. When you willingly take responsibility and ownership even for the failures, you’re positioned for magnificent success.

— Ralph Marston

# – # – #

Much easier said than done.

# # # # #

http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/1009/1009drugwartaliban.htm

How our foolish war on drugs resurrected the Taliban
By Raymond Richman and Howard Richman

*** begin quote ***

We have confused a war for survival with a failed war on drugs. Our inability to control the domestic consumption of drugs led Congress and administration after administration to externalize it, wasting tens of billions of dollars in an endeavor that was doomed to fail because our interference in the internal affairs of nations for our domestic reasons alienated large numbers of their population and resulted in the election of leaders hostile to the U.S. in such countries as Bolivia, Venezuela, and Ecuador and destabilizing Mexico.

*** and ***

Let us recognize the fact that prohibition did not work with alcohol and has not worked with cocaine, marijuana, or heroin. Instead of wasting money as we have been doing for decades, we shall gain revenues instead. We shall gain friends instead of making enemies abroad as we have been doing.

We believe the war against the Taliban and al-Qaida is unwinnable as long as the drug war continues in Afghanistan. ESR

*** end quote ***

What will the unemployed Drug Kingpins do? Go into Medicare fraud.

End “Drug Prohibition” now. Save the children in the cities from the violence.

# # # # #

Yesterday, coming home from New York, I got the “privilege” of sitting on the NJ Turnpike between 14 and 14C for the President to leave Newark Airport.

Doesn’t anyone think that anyone might be “annoyed”? Change their vote?

Argh!

# # # # #

http://www.breitbart.tv/fdic-head-time-to-put-an-end-to-too-big-to-fail-doctrine/

FDIC Head: Time to Put an End to ‘Too Big to Fail’ Doctrine

(About two minutes of SFW video)

# – # – #

Can she say “credit union”? FDIC is broke and she’s championing “more”. “To big to fail” is absurd. The corporation is a CREATION of the gooferment. Just mandate a SIZE limit. How about a billion? Once it exceeds a billion it must divide in 30 days. Spinning stock to it’s holders. However the BoD wants to do it. But split. Seems easy to me. Let the IRS, SEC, and FED enforce it. No extra agencies or power required.

And, may it embarrassing to earn more than the President in salary!?! Thus we don’t need a pay czar either.

# # # # #

“President Obama just declared the swine flu outbreak a national emergency. First the swine flu’s a big threat, then it’s not, then it is. Make up your mind. This thing’s like the Brett Favre of infectious diseases.”

– Jimmy Fallon

# – # – #

Note that not only do the Obama children NOT go to public skrool. They don’t get the flu shot either.

Do as I say; not as I do?

And, by the way, did anyone notice that the gooferment, which wants to run “health care”, didn’t get the vaccines done in time for the season. If you did that at one of the evil drug companies, what would be your title? Yeah, unemployed!

# # # # #

http://www.crowboxunleashed.com/

*** begin quote ***

At the time, I taught some captive crows, remotely, through basic operant conditioning, to feed coins into a vending machine so they could get peanuts. The idea is that a group of wild crows would teach other crows, including their offspring, to find the coins and put them into the vending machine to get peanuts. For this experiment, I received coverage all over the globe – from the New York Times, TED.com, Gizmodo and even Oprah covered the experiment! But now – it’s your turn. The crowbox experiment is open source and this site exists to let the whole world know how to make a crow machine and then share the results.

*** end quote ***

Fascinating idea?

Wonder if it could be done and show an roi?

# # # # #

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/10/arrest_is_made_in_killing_of_p.html

*** begin quote ***

The pastor, Edward Hinds, had called police from his cell phone around 5 p.m. Thursday, authorities told CNN, but the phone went dead. A 911 operator called back, and the janitor, Jose Feliciano, allegedly picked up the phone, saying there was no need to send an officer, then hung up. Police could not trace the call, and no officer was sent.

*** end quote ***

Yes, I guess it was too much trouble for the doughnut eaters to go “protect and serve”. Wonder if the mayor, police commissioner, or one of the other komisars would get that response? Nah, I’m sure they have armed security details. Paid for by the taxpayers, of course.

Argh!

# # # # #

http://meme.yahoo.com/home/

Meme – Yahoo’s Improvement on Twitter

# – # – #

I don’t care for the name. Meme, like gene, is supposed to represent a defining concept. Paradigm is perception. Meme is the mental construction that we can share. (A meme can be “wrong” like government. But it’s something (an idea) we can exchange and understand. I think Yahoo has muddled the pond. IMHO!

# # # # #

http://www.wimp.com/peoplestairs/

# # # # #

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.314f8f63df41800c448cd89e0a88dd31.331&show_article=1

Japanese firms to develop small nuclear reactors

Oct 24 01:08 AM US/Eastern

*** begin quote ***

Japan’s major nuclear reactor manufacturers have begun developing small nuclear power systems for both developed and emerging countries, a report said on Saturday.

Toshiba Corp. is developing an ultra-compact reactor with an output of about 10,000 kilowatts and has started procedures for approval in the United States, the Nikkei business daily said.

The new reactor, the Toshiba 4S, is designed to minimise the need for monitoring and maintenance, with an automatic shutdown function to ensure safety in case of problems, the newspaper said.

Toshiba plans to market the reactor first in the United States, while foreseeing demand from emerging countries in Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe as well as in Africa, it said.

*** end quote ***

For America’s “lost generation” of nuke engineers, I’m sure the approval of this will really put a knot in their shorts.

At one time, America “owned” the nuclear engineering niche.

France gets 80% of its power from nukes; we get near zero.

Argh!

# # # # #