Of The People - By the People - For The People - Yeah Right!

Finance Committee Democrats that voted against the Public Option Amendment

These five democrats joined the 10 Republicans on the Senate Finance committee voting against Jay Rockefeller’s amendment to include the public plan option in the health reform plan they are considering.

* Senator Max Baucus (D-MT)

* Senator Tom Carper (D-DE)

* Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND)

* Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AR)

* Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL)

This is NOT the end of the road for the public option. Go after these cowards! Call, email, write, fax.
_______________________________________________________________________
I tossed this off to those senators above and I modified it a little when I sent it out to blogs and Newspapers. I’m calling for a State by State National Recall of all these Senators.
__________________________________________

The big money special interest are on both sides of the isle – if this fiasco doesn’t create a stampede by the population for real campaign finance reform then there is absolutely no hope for the American public.

How does it feel to be at the helm of that hopelessness? Nice job sell out – you and Grassley certainly are a pair of insulated out of touch old coots.

You’re actions are accountable not only to your public but your creator. You take money from insurance companies so we all know who and what you are.

You chose campaign contributors over people – that’s not governing that’s selling out. I’m sure your parents are so very proud of you.

How does it feel to be responsible for the continuing stampede by the corrupt and the continued selling out of our once great country?

Does it feel good when you sleep at night knowing that you are perpetuating a monopoly that is crippling our economy?

You have sold your soul out for power, position and entitlement. Too scared to take a real stand because it might get taken away from you – you’re a big chicken – not a big deal.

If you don’t like government sponsored health care then give yours up TODAY – right now – hypocrite.

Your have betrayed this Country and all that it should be – or have you forgotten the words “Of the People, By the People, FOR THE PEOPLE”?

To everyone that listens I am proposing a recall of you! That’s right a “RECALL”

Sleep well Senator in your big home with all your privilege knowing you shafted middle America for a few bucks.

Brilliant, what vision you have, what heart, what virtue – what a weak kneed fraud.

A Strong, Robust Public Option is Comming!

Now is the time - poll after poll is shredding the talking heads on television - Americans want a strong, robust real option to the insurance companies. The insurance companies only have themselves to blame. Decades of raping the sick and infirmed over typos and refusing to pay for health care when it is needed has created a lot of angry people out there. Refusing patients care that's what insurance companies do and collecting fees for denying care, and denying service. It's a fraud!

Here are the direct emails to the senators that need to hear from you TODAY let them know that the middle class needs an alternative to being raped by the insurance industry. GET BUSY send those emails make those phone calls or its just more of the same. A friend of mine recently laid off with no children just he and his spouse is paying $2,500.00 dollars a month for his COBRA.

It's a complete rip off...
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Max Baucus MT (Committee Chair)
e-mail
Phone: (202) 224-2651
Fax: (202) 224-9412

John Rockefeller WV
e-mail
Phone (202) 224-6472
Fax (202) 224-7665

Kent Conrad ND
e-mail
Phone: (202) 224-2043
Fax: (202) 224-7776

Jeff Bingman NM
e-mail
Phone: (202) 224-5521
TDD (202) 224-1792
Toll Free (in NM) 1800-433-8658

John Kerry MA
e-mail
Phone (202) 224-2742
Fax (202) 224-8525

Blanche Lincoln AR
e-mail
Phone: (202) 224-4843
Fax: (202) 228-1371

Ron Wyden OR
e-mail
Phone: (202) 224-5244
Fax: (202) 228-2717

Charles Shumer NY
e-mail
Phone:(202)224-6542
Fax: (202) 228-3027
TDD: (202) 224-0420

Debbie Stabenow MI
e-mail
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: (202) 224-4822
TTY: (202) 224-2066

Maria Cantwell WA
e-mail
Phone: 202-224-3441
Fax: (202) 228-0514
TTD: (202) 224-8273

Bill Nelson FL
e-mail
Phone: (202) 224-5274
Fax: (202) 228-2183

Robert Mendez NJ
e-mail
Washington, D.C. 20510
Phone: (202) 224-4744
Fax: (202) 228-2197 fax

Thomas Carper DE
e-mail
Phone: (202) 224-2441
Fax: (202) 228-2190
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Nearly two-thirds of the country continues to favor the public option proposal, which is backed by Mr. Obama.

Currently 65% in favor, 26% opposed. Among Democrats it's 81%-12%, and independents are at 61%-30%. And among Republican respondents, 47% are in favor, to 42% opposed.

51 percent of respondents believe that fundamental changes are needed to the health care system and an additional 27 percent say we need to completely rebuild it. This means that 78 percent of Americans reject the Republican position that the status quo is just fine.

Call, email, fax the senators above TODAY! We need real choice in this Country. Freedom of Choice is the bedrock of our markets.

"Wow now I’m really scared - SOCIALISM"- new blog up with links to take action at http://ping.fm/0aJkI

Wow now I’m really scared - SOCIALISM

If you think the insurance companies are going to lower their cost while having a monopoly over the process – well I’ve got a bridge to sell you …and I think Wall Street should be completely unregulated – I trust strangers with my money…and pollution is good and we should take all of the air bags out of the cars….

When industry has an iron lock grip on distribution and the markets – the government is driven by the people to take corrective action create competition and safe guard the markets and its assets through the rule of law. It’s our saving grace. Our market systems depend and only will thrive on competition; unregulated markets are a roller coaster ride of boom, bubble and burst.

Individual businesses operate at a cross hair as to what is good for the markets and its assets and resources – those resources are not only minerals, timber, coal and oil but you and I and the air we breathe. Individual businesses want to eliminate all competition in order to maximize their profits – from the guy that runs Kinko’s – who worries about Copy Connection opening up down the street to Microsoft out maneuvering Netscape and Firefox to be the only player in the operating system market, to AT&T wanting to be the only Phone Company, or Cable wanting to shut out Satellite from operating in your neighborhood.

The winner takes all mentality doesn’t take into account the whole system. Each sector of the economy impacts each other. It needs to be maintained through the rule of law in balance to operate at its most efficient. That’s what governments are for. The pure free market system is a myth. It doesn’t exist and as an economic model is closer to pure anarchy than anything else.

Unfortunately a bill of goods has been sold to a section of the public – so much so they are willing not to vote their pocket book but emotionally respond to buzz words and fear mongering and to protest against their own self interest. The media is a powerful tool well underestimated by the millions sitting on their sofas watching it passively every night. But well understood by those who want to shape public opinion – not for the public's own good but for their own profit and powerful self interest.

As we are forced to re-regulate the markets because of the enormous damage done to our economy by the unregulated markets, foreclosures, unemployment and stagnating wages, and as we are forced to roll back the take of the middle men who run the insurance sector, and as we are forced to wean ourselves off oil and dirty energy sources that are crippling our economy by holding back the clean energy job sector and being a national security risk – we are going to hear all kinds of horrible things about those elected leaders pragmatic enough and smart enough to know that change is necessary. We are going to hear horrible lies, distortions of truth and promotion of violence as the status quo looses part of its grip.

The bellyaching coming from their media outlets is going to be enormous.

But at the end of the day if you vote your own pocket book and don’t care what happens to the millionaire strangers trying to pull the strings in Congress, and don’t take up their causes as if they were your own, and keep your eye focused on what is best for you and your family – then the Country will be fine.

There is nothing dirty or evil about the words “Public” or “Option” – in fact those words are what make this Country go!

Get informed and take action here and here!

I find it curious that the people harping on the return to a 1950's value system are the most rude, loud, violent and uncivilized people in the debate.

Solar World Round Up - 9/18/09

The massively tax payer subsidized dirty energy sector big agriculture, big coal, big oil and the massively tax payer subsidized nuclear power industry are relics of the last century.

I know too many people later in life employed by the nuclear power industry that are horribly afflicted with cancer. So health care costs are also an issue to grapple with for nuclear power.

The status quo has to get out of the way of innovation and technology. The government needs to level the playing field.

We are behind the times because the Status Quo and their minions are still raking in a ton of money from tax payer subsidies and price fixing. Suffering from a serious lack of vision our economy lags behind the rest of the world.

Here's the latest news
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World wakes to new dawn for solar power
The Age
That old piece included this: ''Every hour the sun floods the earth with a deluge of thermal energy equal to 21 billion tons of coal. ...


Google Developing Own Solar Thermal Technology
EcoGeek
Currently, a 250-MW solar thermal installation produces energy at a rate of about 12 - 14 cents/kWh. The company would like to develop a product that would ...


India's Gujarat to Give Contracts for $10 Billion Solar Project
Bloomberg
With solar thermal, you get more megawatts per square hectare of land” compared with other technologies to harness the sun's energy such as photovoltaic, ...

Striving for a Solar-Powered Future
IndustryWeek
In the United States more than 62000 new solar thermal and solar electric installations were completed in 2008, up 16% over the previous year, according to ...


Solar Energy Centre to receive IITB solar thermal project
Cleantech Group
The Mumbai-based Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB) is continuing to move forward with plans to develop a megawatt-level solar thermal power ...


Focused on Solar Power: Heading for High Temperature Heaven
RenewableEnergyWorld.com
Concentrating solar thermal power offers short energy payback time, large-scale, reliable and predictable generation characteristics and up to the prospect ...


Solar start-up squeezes more juice from silicon cells
CNET News
Because of the daunting financing challenges in energy, other green-tech companies, including solar thermal start-up Ausra, have had to shift strategies in ...

How Solar Power For Homes Can Help To Save the World | Go Solar ...
By Sam Deane
The creation of electricity by harvesting solar energy is the basic function of solar panels. The longer you harvest solar energy, the more solar power for homes you can produce. So, production of solar energy depends upon the amount of ... Many people, when installing solar power for homes, will start by using solar power mainly for their lighting needs. From there, they may install solar thermal features to heat their water and then maybe use solar thermal heating to ...

Generate energy in greener ways, World Bank urges India
By Ians
"We're very interested to explore offshore wind, tidal energy and solar thermal to generate renewable power in India," Astonfield Management Inc co-chairman and director Sourabh Sen said. India's per capita energy consumption is ...

Calif. governor boosts state's clean energy plan
Reuters
He also said the legislature's alternative would have required solar thermal plants to clear more regulatory hurdles before they could be built. ...

Governor Richardson Applauds Belen's Solar Power Celebration
Reuters
About Integrative Solar, LLC Integrative Solar, LLC, sells, develops and integrates solar electrical and solar thermal systems of all sizes. ...

MEDIA MATTERS for TRUTH

Since President Obama's inauguration, Fox News has officially abandoned its already dubious standing as a news organization and is now engaging in outright political activism, completing its transition into the 24/7 media wing of the far-right conservative movement.

Fox News' leaders have admitted as much themselves. In a March interview with the Los Angeles Times, Fox News chief Roger Ailes described his network as "the Alamo," and Fox News vice president for programming Bill Shine has referred to the station as the "voice of opposition." Clearly, Fox's employees have taken their bosses' words to heart. Led by resident demagogue Glenn Beck, Fox has spent much of the year openly advocating against the Democratic Congress and White House. Beck and Fox aggressively promoted and encouraged attendance at the anti-Obama Tax Day tea parties in April and subsequent follow-up events, including this past weekend's 9-12 protest in Washington, D.C. During the August congressional recess, Fox hosts frequently lauded and encouraged the health care town hall disrupters. And now, emboldened by the resignation of White House green jobs adviser Van Jones, Beck and Fox have launched an all-out witch hunt against Obama officials and nominees.

Fox isn't going to change on its own. We have to expose the network for what it is. We have to fight back.

Tell 10 of your friends to sign up for Media Matters action alerts so they can be on the cutting edge of the fight against conservative misinformation and the activism it fuels: http://mediamatters.org/action/fightfox/

If you have a Twitter account, follow Media Matters so you can get up-to-the-minute updates on our latest items, clips, and blog posts: http://twitter.com/mmfa

40 Million New Customers and the Insurance Industry is still not Happy...Unbelievable!

This is a brief video about the public option – you might be surprised to learn how little real competition there is in the insurance industry.
http://ping.fm/gItJi

The Public Option Explained Video

This is a brief video about the public option - you might be surprised to learn how little competition there is in the insurance industry.

Click HERE

Private Insurance is for Suckers!

This is a repost - article written by Terry J. Allen
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Capitalist Health Insurance for All

Here’s what corporations know, but don’t want you to find out: Private insurance is for suckers.

Armies of healthcare industry flacks, lobbyists and bought-and-paid-for legislators rant that nonprofit, public insurance is a slippery slope to socialist hell, will limit your choice of physicians to Doc Watson and Dr. Kevorkian, and bankrupt the country. But, in fact, most U.S. Fortune 500 companies wouldn’t touch private insurance with a 10-foot colonoscope.

When they need to insure their financial health against fire, terrorism, and liability lawsuits sparked by defective products and polluting factories that kill people, they don’t call State Farm. Instead, corporations routinely insure themselves by creating a “captive” insurance company as a wholly-owned subsidiary. “The parent company is insuring its own risk,” says Sandy Bigglestone, of Vermont’s Captive Insurance division.

But when we the people need health insurance against the high cost of staying alive, we, or our employers, pay private insurers—corporations that are more devoted to protecting their profits than our health. The premiums we pay go not only for our pills and treatments, but also for lobbyists (on whom the health insurance industry currently spends $1.4 million per day for the U.S. Congress alone), campaign contributions, stratospheric executive salaries, private jets, lawyers hired to fight legitimate claims, and, of course, profits.

Captive insurance cuts costs, first, by saving all the money an outside private insurer would take as profit. How much? When it comes to health insurance companies, it’s very hard to know. That is why Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.V.) has demanded that the top health insurers reveal what portion of premiums goes to profits versus patient care. But whatever the figure, the profits are big and getting bigger.

By various reports, at 10 of the country’s largest publicly traded health insurance companies, profits rose 428 percent from 2000 to 2007—from $2.4 to $12.9 billion. Helping fund that jump were our premiums, which rose from 1.5 percent of G.D.P. in 1970 to 5.5 percent in 2007. The average family with employer-sponsored insurance now pays twice what it did in 1999, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Captives also save administrative costs, since they have “an incentive to do business efficiently” because “it’s eventually coming out of the same pockets,” Dennis Harwick, president of the Captive Insurance Companies Association, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. On top of that, captive insurance companies rake in tax breaks by deducting from their profits the money they are required to reserve for payout­­—even if they never have to pay it out.

“What!” you say. “By using captives, parent companies undercut the free enterprise system and deprive businesses of the right to compete in the market. That sounds like socialism!”—except that when corporations do it, no one screams that Sweden is taking over.

We could capture the same sweet deal if we cut out the middleman and insure ourselves. Single-payer health insurance, or at least, a public option, is the counterpart to captive insurance for us peons who get cancer instead of billion-dollar bonuses and $2,000 co-pays for ambulance rides instead of junkets on corporate jets. Under a public option, the government would act as our own wholly owned subsidiary—our nonprofit, low-overhead captive insurer.

Most of the world’s captives are domiciled (sounds so homey) in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands, making them one-stop tropical shops for tax shelters and self-insurance. “About 85 percent of the top 50 healthcare systems in the United States have some relationship with the Bermuda market, either through captives domiciled there, or by buying reinsurance for their captives,” insurance insider Judy Hart told the trade group, Bermuda Captive Club.

Vermont, home to the most U.S. captives, lists 856 companies that collect (give themselves) $16 billion in premiums. These include Goldman Sachs, AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Wal-Mart, Archer Daniels Midland, Bank of America, AT&T, and dozens of for- and not-for-profit healthcare-related companies like Wyeth Holdings, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Coventry Health Care and Humana.

We could do worse than become fellow travelers. Instead of calling public health insurance pull-the-plug-on-granny socialism, we could take a page from the corporate handbook, and call it captive.
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Terry J. Allen, an In These Times senior editor, has written the magazine's monthly investigative health and science column since 2005.

Bridges to Nowhere – NOW the Republicans are Worried About Fiscal Restraint – Bullshit! New blog up at - http://ping.fm/UAmyJ

Bridges to Nowhere - NOW the Republicans are Worried About Fiscal Restraint - Bullshit!

I guess the republicans think we all have forgotten that THEY were handed a budget SURPLUS by the last Democratic President - and then immediately squandered it by eliminating taxes on the richest 1% of Americans, building bridges to nowhere and fighting Bin Laden in two separate countries simultaneously.

Their posture of economic discipline is an outrage and an insult in the face of those REALITIES. They rolled back the Depression Era Laws creating an unregulated Wall Street wild west show of fraud, lies and corruption that gave us this economic crisis, foreclosure and joblessness nightmare.

They'ld rather spend money to help the already fantastically rich than help their fellow Americans who have fallen on hard times.

The bootom line in this country is that you get sick, go broke, loose your home and get tossed on the street.

The republicans need to stop whoring for big business TODAY.

If they are not for the public option - vote them the hell out of office.

Those of you just as mad as I am on the right - your anger is misdirected - this President is trying to level the playing field. Deaf, dumb and blind you turn your anger from an unregulated Wall Street that has created this crisis - to the man in charge of fixing it....don't be dupes, and don't trust Big Business anymore than you trust politicians.

The majority of Americans WANT the Public Option - even after all the high priced professional career lobbyists, lobbying, and the spending millions a day to change our minds.

Vote YOUR pocket book America and don't listen to these scumbags no matter how many corporate sponsored radio, television and newspaper advertisements (shows) they appear on.

Why the Truth Matters. New Blog Posting - Click Here: http://ping.fm/ISBUr

Why the Truth Matters!

Dis-information - lies and knowingly false statements crumble our democracy, nation and markets at their very core.

The very foundation of the markets and country depend exclusively on the truth to function at their optimum.

Turning this country and our markets over to those who practice the art of deception will ruin the country.

It has already ruined the markets and the civility that is necessary for political discourse...the next threshold to cross will be a civil war.

One might be coming if we don't demand truth and demand the FCC restore the fairness doctrine to media.

Please invest spiritually, financially and emotionally with truth, honor and integrity, and promote it within your business and throughout your politics and life.

Teach it to your children.

This country is about to rip in half because of charlatans trying to be famous and rich and the disenfranchised they whip into a frenzy when anyone challenges the Status Quo (the people paying them).

They have an utter contempt for anything but themselves. They work at FOX News and they think it's funny.

Here's a brief article that gets right at the problem.

What's Wrong With the Media

Stay informed with "fact check" a source for truth!

The Wolf Hunt in Idaho and Montana - new blog posting - click here: http://ping.fm/3wful

The Wolf Hunt in Idaho and Montana

Encroachment into the wilderness carries a certain responsibility. Just slaughtering whatever is in your way to turn the wilderness into suburbia isn't the answer. Understanding migratory paths and planning communities with sound science will not only minimize encroachment problems but be beneficial regarding run off streams and rivers and the water and food they supply.

The wolves serve a purpose in the ecosystem. They are a product of a creative force greater than our own and beyond our understanding. Indiscriminate destruction of forest, and wildlife is fraught with unintended circumstances throwing nature out of balance and bringing humans bigger problems than they anticipated.

There are other means of keeping Wolves and Bears from strolling down main street. Using encroachment problems to turn loose drunks with guns because of politics is missing the point of living our lives in balance. A balance we need to sustain our very health, well being and national security.

Here is the latest news on the judges court ruling to delist the wolves as an endangered species.

Wolf fact sheet

Paul Burke
Author-Journey Home

This is the Truth - This is the Lie - two new blog postings on health care - click here: http://ping.fm/2JVtV

This is the Truth

The public insurance option has become a lightening rod for Republicans, hate radio jocks, Fox News, the Wall Street Journal's editorial page, and lobbyists for the health-industrial complex who accuse the White House and Democrats of planning a "government takeover" of health care. - That's the lie....

Here's the Truth -

A public insurance option is essential to control healthcare costs
A public insurance option is essential to control healthcare costs
A public insurance option is essential to control healthcare costs
A public insurance option is essential to control healthcare costs
A public insurance option is essential to control healthcare costs
A public insurance option is essential to control healthcare costs


Here's the Truth -

For profit insurance companies face little to no competition
For profit insurance companies face little to no competition
For profit insurance companies face little to no competition
For profit insurance companies face little to no competition
For profit insurance companies face little to no competition
For profit insurance companies face little to no competition
For profit insurance companies face little to no competition

Only competition from a public insurance option will force them to lower costs

Only competition from a public insurance option will force them to lower costs

Only competition from a public insurance option will force them to lower costs

Only competition from a public insurance option will force them to lower costs

Republicans are protecting the insurance companies
Republicans are protecting the insurance companies
Republicans are protecting the insurance companies
Republicans are protecting the insurance companies
Republicans are protecting the insurance companies
Republicans are protecting the insurance companies

The insurance companies milk the healthy and rape the sick
The insurance companies milk the healthy and rape the sick
The insurance companies milk the healthy and rape the sick
The insurance companies milk the healthy and rape the sick
The insurance companies milk the healthy and rape the sick
The insurance companies milk the healthy and rape the sick
The insurance companies milk the healthy and rape the sick


A nationwide public insurance option would have the scale (a huge pool of applicants nationwide) and authority to negotiate lower rates with drug companies and healthcare providers, thereby pushing private insurers to do the same.

It's simple economies of scale and the benefit of competition which the "free market" Republicans are supposed to stand for....their true colors are to protect the insurance company monopolies and the status quo as they rape the sick and elderly.

Not supporting the public option is kicking the sick to the curb, letting them go up in bankruptcy flames as they pay huge out of pocket costs while dying of cancer.

It's wrong across the board - and against all the tenants of Christianity the very same Christianity that our morally bankrupt politicians trot out to get elected.

It's not only un-American, it's cruel, and pure evil to let the current monopolies stand.

What do you think is right protecting a hard working tax payer who has now become sick and unemployed from cancer and facing insurmountable hospital bills or maintaining the current system that funnels millions of dollars to fat CEOs and the Politicians who represent their greed. The system as it stands is working overtime to provide them both in overabundance?

Kick the sick to the curb or level the playing field - where do you really stand?

For more in depth analysis go here

This is the Lie

In the official Republican response to Mr Obama's speech, Representative Charles Boustany, stated,

"Replacing your family's current healthcare with government-run healthcare ........that's the lie right there...........

Replacing your family's current healthcare with government-run healthcare
Replacing your family's current healthcare with government-run healthcare
Replacing your family's current healthcare with government-run healthcare
Replacing your family's current healthcare with government-run healthcare
Replacing your family's current healthcare with government-run healthcare
Replacing your family's current healthcare with government-run healthcare
Replacing your family's current healthcare with government-run healthcare

If you believe that's what the bill is about you haven't done your homework.


Congressman Joe Wilson - showing the affects of swallowing the Insurance Company's Kool-Aid

The public option explained briefly.<http://ping.fm/XrNBf

We've been talking about this issue for over 100 years. Enough talk. It's time to get something done!
http://ping.fm/n6p6N

Bill Clinton tried in the early 1990s. And since Barack Obama was inaugurated in January, Congress has been heatedly debating health care reform.

We've been talking about this issue for over 100 years. Enough talk. It's time to get something done!

Teddy Roosevelt first proposed health care for all in the early 1900s. FDR fought for it in the 1930s. LBJ won Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s but wasn't able to provide coverage for everyone.

Thoughts on God

I and the Village - Marc Chagall (French, born Belarus. 1887-1985)
______________________

Once you realize that the creative process is "god" and "god" is not some Santa Claus figure in a white robe personified in whatever culture is promoting whatever religion then you realize that religious doctrine was written by man as mans first attempt to write laws and perform social engineering.

Don't eat pork you'll croak. Don't kill, honor your mother and father, don't steal are all laws directed to bring about civilization. Civilization is a necessary and good thing if survival is our goal.

But as in all things religious or belief oriented you have to take that first leap yourself.

Beliefs are not facts. They are hypothesis or theories.

All religion can ever hope to be is a theory and each culture has its own.

The trouble is some get so wedded to their beliefs that when they come into contact with other cultures or individuals who might believe in a variation or something completely different they are forced to question their beliefs.

If they have moved from belief to thinking their beliefs are fact well this can cause confusion, anxiety, the loss of certainty and create insecurity and bring up unsettling questioning and frustration and even fear bringing some to lash out against such differences violently.

Violence is the most extreme reaction and the believers of any religion from any culture have to watch and are susceptible to manipulation by individuals or groups that have some other agenda - usually power, greed and control - other than personal enlightenment for a fulfilled individual and life, and a positive, healthy, cohesive, civilized, society.

If you categorically reject that creativity is "god" and need some "other" thing, personification then even the existence of things not of your own - not from man's hands can ever prove "gods" existence.

If you are intrigued by or accept that creativity is "god" then the world and all even yourself and your own being and consciousness is overwhelming proof of a force greater than your own.

That's a close enough definition of "god" for me.

However, I'm pretty sure we are all supposed to reach our own conclusions, and life, free will, and free thought are essential rights, and essential for our very own survival both spiritually and physically, as individuals and societies, and evolve with the individual and societies over time.

The power to make planets, solar systems, suns and universes, let alone all the phenomena down here on our tiny little planet is a huge force. Whether you think it is divine or random the energy comes from somewhere.

I think therefore I am(?). It's an unknowable and maybe somehow designed that way. The point is I don't know and neither do you and nobody knows.

But natural common sense tells me I didn't put this all here so number one I respect it, because a force greater than me created all of everything.

It's beautiful in my eyes in its complexity, balance, interaction, mystery,and visually, and so therefore I consider it a work of art.

As a work of art it is sacred to me, and speaks to me no less than a Monet or Van Gogh. I try to stay conscious of that and it, and not get dragged down by the mundane or too tightly focused on the personal dramas that rage for attention in everyone's life.

So what's the point? Enjoy the day. But don't stop thinking freely and don't fool yourself into believing you'll ever nail down this question of "God".

A power greater than you is obviously at work. It might be pure accidental energy, a mix of positive and negative energy, ying, yang, good, evil and nothing more. And even so perhaps all that is revealed to us is all that there is(?).

However whatever "It" is still it is greater than our own beings and greater than our meager accomplishments as well as reflected in our own thoughts. You are indeed the eyes, consciousness, and thoughts of the world.

In other words "YOU" didn't create it but you sure can shape it for yourself especially, and for others as well.

Choose wisely because the choice is yours and yours alone. Be your own guide, your own artist, create the very best you and life you can, keep at it, work on it and take joy in the creative process that is you yourself, your being and your life, your accomplishments and failures.

Your life's canvas is yours it's blank, the time is now, and your choice of colors are your thoughts, actions and attitudes. Blame is irrelevant, excuses are counter productive. The choices are yours each moment of each hour of each day.

Now is the time - make it a good one.

Paul Burke
Author-Journey Home

Violence Invalidates Religion - new blog up! http://ping.fm/BgD9a

Violence Invalidates Religion

There is a wall between church and state for a reason. The passions of unhinged religion lead to suicide bombers. Religion has done more to drive people apart than bring them together.

With everyone claiming they have the one true religion it becomes anarchy and an unholy test of wills that leads to violence in direct contradiction to the tenants of all religions when they all try to impose their views on each other. I feel so sorry for the faithful when they get caught up in this. Forgetting the ten commandments and loosing that sense of enlightenment over to violence and hate. It is a huge step backwards in their personal journey their personal growth and fulfillment. It is antithetical to what religion is supposed to do for the individual, and the opportunity is lost for those engaged in hate, and violence.

The privilege of practicing your religion freely in this country comes with a caveat. You must respect those who don't believe in your particular brand. No matter how convinced you are personally that your set of beliefs are the one true set of beliefs - they are still your own personal beliefs and not others maybe not even of those sitting next to you in your pew.

Forcing people to believe as you do at gun point or through legislation or shouting at them is counterproductive in affect trying to take another persons liberty and freedom away. When you start telling other people what to do, what to believe, what to say, what to eat, when to pray, what to pray, what to read, what to write, what to study, and what to say - bloodshed will ensue.

There is no cause greater than freedom and liberty. Freedom and liberty are the moral high ground. A religion or sect or cult of a belief system to be imposed on others through force invalidates the very religion it is trying to promote. Violence invalidates religion.

The Founding Fathers had already experienced this with the Church of England. Why some people have to relearn this well documented experience is beyond me. They do themselves an injustice, their religion an injustice and drive others and themselves off the sacred path.

Open a history book.

Paul Burke
Author-Journey Home
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"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my church. "

Thomas Paine

"Almost all Europe, for many centuries, was inundated with blood, which was shed at the direct instigation or with the full approval of the ecclesiastical authorities."

William E. H. Lecky, Irish Historian 1838-1903

"If we look back into history for the character of the present sects in Christianity, we shall find few that have not in their turns been persecutors, and complainers of persecution. The primitive Christians thought persecution extremely wrong in the Pagans, but practiced it on one another. The first Protestants of the Church of England blamed persecution in the Romish church, but practiced it upon the Puritans. These found it wrong in the Bishops, but fell into the same practice themselves both here [England] and in New England."

Ben Franklin

"They all attributed the peaceful dominion of religion in their country mainly to the separation of church and state. I do not hesitate to affirm that during my stay in America I did not meet a single individual, of the clergy or the laity, who was not of the same opinion on this point"

-Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1835

5 Myths About Health Care Around the World http://ping.fm/V2aub

We force 700,000 Americans into bankruptcy each year because of medical bills. You want something to fear - fear that!

The Blue Dogs? You mean the Blue Cross Blue Shield Dogs! http://ping.fm/QhiWs

The Blue Dogs Are Frauds - New Blog Posting Up: http://ping.fm/niKiD

The Blue Dogs Are Frauds

There is overwhelming public support for the public option.

All: 79 percent favor/18 percent oppose
Democrats: 89 percent favor/8 percent oppose
Republicans: 61 percent favor/33 percent oppose
Independents: 80 percent favor/16 percent opposed
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PUBLIC OPTION IS ESSENTIAL TO HEALTH REFORM

Washington, DC – "The public option in health care reform may not be essential to bureaucrats or insurance companies but it absolutely is essential to the almost 47 million uninsured Americans who live day to day without health care coverage," said League of Women Voters National President Mary G. Wilson.
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I'm very confused by the Blue Dog Coalition - and their well publicized stance as fiscal conservatives. If a public option will control costs and keep health care costs down - why are they against it?

When you are talking about the the Federal Budget Increasing - why did they vote to create a Whole New Department - Homeland Security? Or do politics and self preservation trump what's best for the Country and the Blue Dogs alleged fiscal conservatism is just a hoax?

We are hearing from the Insurance Industry that the Public Option on Health Care would put them out of business. The only way that would happen is if the Public Option creates Competition for them. If the Public Option creates competition it must by definition KEEP costs down.

So how come the Blue Dogs are against that? It doesn't add up. The Blue Dogs are frauds. They are not interested in supporting what the American people want. They are not interested in supporting what fiscal conservatives want (to lower cost). They are only interested in protecting the insurance industry who are their benefactors.

We need to push back hard on these frauds, unAmerican, selfish pricks NOW who would rather dump billions in giveaways to the Insurance industry than reign in run away cost.

Where are all the free market freaks? NOW they are afraid of competition when it would benefit the middle class and all working families?

There are too many inconsistencies here with the Blue Dog voting record. Unless there is real campaign finance reform the politicians taking money from the Insurance Industry won't vote for the American Citizen.

It's unbelievable to me that in this day and age so called fiscal democrats would rather vote for a health plan that is just a giant subsidy to the insurance industry than control costs by creating competition and greater pools of people to bid the overall cost of health care DOWN.

They pose as fiscal conservatives but on a macro economic scale they are just throwing our tax dollars at an undisciplined industry.

That's not conservative, that's not fiscally responsible, that's cowardly.

Shame on you. If you want to live up to your marketed and hyped reputation as fiscal conservatives then vote, craft, and support a strong public option anything less than that is just plain wrong and the opposite of a fiscal conservative point of view.

Paul Burke
Author - Journey Home
Excellent Article How Pharma and Insurance Intend to Kill the Public Option Click Here
Take Action and Make Your Voice Heard HERE and HERE
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Tell the Blue Dogs to Get Their Heads Out of Their Asses HERE