Idkal

Haider Rizvi, OneWorld US, 7 May 2008

UNITED NATIONS, May 7 (OneWorld) - A major U.S.-based humanitarian aid group is urging the Bush administration to revise its aid policy toward Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) and provide immediate assistance to the cyclone victims in that country.

“Now is the time to support the Burmese people” said Joel Charny of the aid group Refugees International in a statement urging the U.S. government to change its funding policy on Myanmar.

The United States has put severe restrictions on humanitarian aid to Myanmar, and provides less aid to the country than any other major donor nation, the group said Monday. Despite the U.S. constraints, however, many international agencies and aid groups are currently operating inside that country.

[Read the report]

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Clinton lends her struggling campaign $6.4 million as Obama outspends her
By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press, 7 May 2008

WASHINGTON - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton lent her presidential campaign $6.4 million over the past month, her campaign said Wednesday, underscoring the financial advantage held by her rival, Barack Obama.

The money more than doubled Clinton’s personal investment in her bid for the Democratic nomination. She gave her campaign $5 million earlier this year.

[Read the report]

Hillary Lied (again)
By thejoshuablog - May 6, 2008, 10:38AM

Lies of omission are still lies.

Hillary Clinton hid some $24 MILLION DOLLARS when she listed their income for 2004 - 2006.

What a shock!

[Read the post]

Hillary Clinton dismisses “elite” economists on gas tax plan
By Andy Sullivan
5 May 2008

Clinton raised questions about Obama’s ability to connect with working-class Americans while dismissing economists who have said her plan to suspend gas taxes over the summer would do little good.

“I’m not going to put my lot in with economists,” Clinton said when asked to name an economist who backed her proposal.

“We’ve got to get out of this mind-set where somehow elite opinion is always on the side of doing things that really disadvantage the vast majority of Americans,” said Clinton, a former first lady who would be the first woman president.

[Read the report]

Sam Stein: Exit Polls: Limbaugh Effect Seems To Rear Its Head

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This is quite a touching campaign story. This kid apparently is far more passionate than 99% of the voters. (Mike)

John McCain is using his “sugar mama’s” plane for campaign business. “…Federal Aviation Administration records indicate that she appears to be using her personal wealth to help his campaign, through the continued use of her corporate jet… critics have argued that Mrs. McCain is effectively subsidizing her husband’s campaign because either she or her company has to make up for the difference between what his campaign pays for the jet’s use and what it really costs to operate it.” (7 of 6)

“The PR executive John McCain just tapped to help run the GOP convention quit today after a report that his firm once represented the Burmese junta…” (7 of 6)

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Remember when the U.S. was offered million of dollars in relief aid for victims of hurricane Katrina and it went unclaimed? I find it the height of hypocrisy for the U.S. to be critical of the military junta in Myanmar for aid efforts stalling. (7 of 6)

Imagine: Instead of having our mighty military in Iraq endlessly driving and flying around and shooting at an elusive enemy that we created, we instead moved it over to Myanmar and helped resolve this devastating problem. That’s the United States of America I would like to live in. (Mike)

Fascinating story: Hard drive, from Space Shuttle Columbia (which disintegrated with 7 astronauts on board in February, 2003), containing research data intended to solve physics problem was recovered with 99% of data intact. (Mike)

This is just the most god-awful political video I’ve ever seen. (Mike)

California is running out of money, and running out of ways to pay its teachers. (Mike)

A case for Hillary. (Mike)

“Soaring food prices may throw millions of Asians back into poverty, undo a decade of gains and stoke civil unrest” (Mike)

The recession is starting to hit Las Vegas hard. (Mike)

In the supposedly tranquil province of Anbar: Four Marines killed in Iraq. Hello… American troops are still dying there… Does anybody hear me? Apparently not! (7 of 6)

Canada must choose on how to approach the American Northwest ban on Salmon fishing. (7 of 6)

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Turkana over at The Left Coaster explains why Clinton supporters must look at the bigger picture when thinking about not voting for Obama (snippet):

“….It isn’t necessary that those who support Clinton now enthusiastically come to support Obama, but it is necessary that they come to support him. Even at the bare minimum level. And that bare minimum level is to vote for him, in November. You don’t have to like doing so, but you do have to do so. The alternative is unthinkable. Many of you like to think of yourselves as wiser and more politically astute than are many Obama supporters, and it is time to make that case for yourselves. Be as graceful in defeat as the worst of them have been graceless in victory. Obama himself, however imperfect, is a far better person than those who do such a terrific job of turning people away from him. Keep that in mind. Keep in mind the irrevocable damage that would be done by four more years of neocon/theocon/kleptocrat autocracy. And keep in mind that the often odious behavior you have seen from online Obama supporters is not the fault of the candidate himself.”

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FRIDAY F U N

• 50 Greatest Comedy Sketches
• 50 things you can do every day to conserve our resources
• Get Out And Play - interesting video followed by “pong” game using humans
• Looking at your local weather in a different way. Has a good traffic map too.
• Name that TV theme song
• To say that there would be a better way to fly than this would be a lie.
• Bored at your desk job? Try making things at your desk
• A very creative marriage proposal
• The Museum of Interactive Failure (web site graveyard)
• Spot the fake smiles (I scored 14 out of 20)
• Very useful databases available on the web

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Question for today:

WHY ARE WE STILL IN IRAQ?
Quick, without thinking, what’s the first answer that comes to mind? Right, there is no clear answer. You can sit back and start thinking of many fine ones:

• The Democratic Congress keeps succumbing to Bush’s threat-filled spending requests
• A quick exit will create even more chaos and death
• If we leave we’ll lose access to all that sweet crude oil
• The military/industrial/petroleum complex really controls everything and will never leave until forced
• We couch-potato Americans are too lazy to demand what we want (unless pollsters call us)
• We still haven’t found all those WMDs that Bush demanded were there
• Iraqis won’t be truly free until every last one of them is dead or a refugee
• We were promised rose petals and parades in the streets of Baghdad and won’t leave until those ungrateful Iraqis start meeting our expectations

Some of these are likely true, and some are just Neocon fantasies. The point is, we Americans (myself excluded) wanted to hurt Iraq because they did NOT cause 9-11. Makes no sense? Neither does this war nor the outrageous way in which all of us (myself included) have failed to stop our lawless government. Shame on us all.

(cross-posted at Liberal Coalition)

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The latest report issued by the Medicare Trustees is not good.

The HI annual cost rate is projected to increase from 3.11 percent of taxable payroll in 2007 to 11.40 percent in 2082—8.02 percent of taxable payroll more than the projected income rate for 2082. Expressed in relation to the projected Gross Domestic Product (GDP), HI cost is estimated to rise from the current level of 1.5 percent of GDP to 4.8 percent in 2082.

[…]

The financial outlook for the Medicare program continues to raise serious concerns, and a “Medicare funding warning” is triggered again by the findings of this report. Total Medicare expenditures were $432 billion in 2007 and are expected to increase in future years at a faster pace than either workers’ earnings or the economy overall. As a percentage of GDP, expenditures are projected to increase from 3.2 percent in 2007 to 10.8 percent by 2082 (based on our intermediate set of assumptions). Growth of this magnitude, if realized, would substantially increase the strain on the nation’s workers, Medicare beneficiaries, and the Federal Budget.

[…]

HI tax income and other dedicated revenues are expected to fall short of HI expenditures in 2008 and all future years. The HI trust fund does not meet our short-range test of financial adequacy, and fund assets are projected to be exhausted in 2019.

So, in 11 years the Medicare Fund assets will be exhausted. And yet the solution to this problem is to expand government programs for health care and as a result increase demand for health care resources…which will some how work some sort of magic and make everything cheaper.

In the long range, projected expenditures and scheduled tax income are substantially out of balance, and the trust fund does not meet our test of long-range close actuarial balance. Currently, this imbalance is relatively small, with dedicated revenues estimated to cover 94 percent of costs in 2008, but it will grow rapidly in the absence of changes to current law: taxes would cover 78 percent of estimated costs in 2019, and only 30 percent at the end of the long-range period. Closing deficits of this magnitude will require very substantial increases in tax revenues and/or reductions in expenditures.

In other words, the party is about over and either taxes have to go up, expenditures have to be curtailed or both. The idea that we can have more health care (i.e. universal coverage at current levels of care)¹ and lower costs is simply not an option. Anybody who says otherwise is either a liar or an idiot.

As noted previously, over the full 75-year period, the fund has a projected present value unfunded obligation of $12.4 trillion. This unfunded obligation indicates that if $12.4 trillion were added to the trust fund at the beginning of 2008, the program could meet the projected cost of current-law expenditures over the next 75 years.

Oh no problem there, our current GDP is….$14.185 trillion, we’ll simply move over an entire years worth of GDP to Medicare and there we go problem solved.
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¹I imagine some might not quite understand this point, I’m saying that sure we can have universal care, but that that care will have to decrease in quality if you are not to spend more money. You can’t get better care at a cheaper cost.

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