Major LoLz

care about health care?

“The current health care debate in Congress has nothing to do with death panels or public options or socialized medicine. The real debate, the only one that counts, is how much money our blood-sucking insurance, pharmaceutical and for-profit health services are going to be able to siphon off from new health care legislation. The proposed plans rattling around Congress all ensure that the profits for these corporations will increase and the misery for ordinary Americans will be compounded. The corporate state, enabled by both Democrats and Republicans, is yet again cannibalizing the Treasury. It is yet again pushing Americans, especially the poor and the working class, into levels of despair and rage that will continue to fuel the violent, proto-fascist movements leaping up around the edges of American society. And the traditional watchdogs—those in public office, the press and citizens groups—are as useless as the perfumed fops of another era who busied their days with court intrigue at Versailles. Canada never looked so good.

The Democrats are collaborating with lobbyists for the insurance industry, the pharmaceutical industry and for-profit health care providers to craft the current health care reform legislation. “Corporate and industry players are inside the tent this time,” says David Merritt, project director at Newt Gingrich’s Center for Health Transformation, “so there is a vacuum on the outside.” And these lobbyists have already killed a viable public option and made sure nothing in the bills will impede their growing profits and capacity for abuse.

“It will basically be a government law that says you have to buy their defective product,” says Dr. David Himmelstein, a professor at Harvard Medical School and a founder of Physicians for a National Health Plan. “Next the government will tell us a Pinto in every garage, a lead-coated toy to every child and melamine-laced puppy chow for every dog.”

[....]

Obama and the congressional leadership have shut out advocates of single-payer. The press, including papers such as The New York Times, treats single-payer as a fringe movement. The television networks rarely mention it. And yet between 45 and 60 percent of doctors favor single-payer. Between 40 and 62 percent of the American people, including 80 percent of registered Democrats, want universal, single-payer not-for-profit health care for all Americans. The ability of the corporations to discredit and silence voices that represent at least half of the population is another sad testament to the power of our corporate state.

“We are considering a variety of striking efforts for early in the fall,” Dr. Himmelstein said, “including protests outside state capitals by doctors around the country, video links of conferences in 70 or 80 cities around the country, with protests and potential doctors chaining themselves to the fence of the White House.”

Make sure you join them”

—— full article here

hijacking is awesome. the lobby power is sooooo strong on this one. we need to have a voice. dollars make sense, but people lead movements.

Democracy Unlimited

these peeps are doing some cool stuff up here in Humboldt and elsewhere. glad to get to learn from them in my upcoming internship.

Resist the dominant program

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros

face-feed

who are you? who are we? how do we interact? why are we networking?

—–

“Facebook just bought the rights to nearly everything you do online. And it cost them only $47.5 million.

Facebook’s purchase of FriendFeed, an obscure social-media platform, is potentially momentous. To understand why, we must understand FriendFeed, a start-up that is ubiquitous among techies and unknown to everybody else. It’s a sleek application that acts as a clearinghouse for all of your social-media activities. Post something to Flickr? That will show up on your FriendFeed page. Digg something? FriendFeed will know. Post to Twitter from your phone? FriendFeed will syndicate your tweets. Once you initially tell it where to look, it will collect everything and tell it to the world…..

…….

……….If this happens, Facebook will be the one portal to rule them all. Other than Google, that is. Google long ago took over much of our Internet usage: Gmail, Google Docs, Google search, etc. Facebook and Twitter, for now, are the two holdouts, bastions of independence in an increasingly consolidated Internet. (To be more precise: the user-generated Internet.) And Twitter may already be too integrated to count because of the way Facebook pipes it in.

That leaves two mega-conglomerates that will compete to be the portal of everything we do on the Internet. Google has long tried to get into the social game, and Facebook surely wouldn’t mind expanding into some of Google’s territory. (Real-time search is the likely entry point.) It’s as classic an American struggle as Pepsi vs. Coke. Two companies, one market. Regardless of which side you choose, I’m sure Facebook will be happy to air your thoughts on the matter. Even if you write them on Blogspot, Google’s blogging network. After all, that’s why Facebook bought FriendFeed. So it could own you.”

——

full article via washington post

my questions are these:

are we co-evolving with this technology that is therefore benefiting both the consumer and the producer positively, or are they increasingly convincing us that this is important and real? are these online relationships healthy? what comes next?

obama to garden orgaically

“While the organic garden will provide food for the first family’s meals and formal dinners, its most important role, Mrs. Obama said, will be to educate children about healthful, locally grown fruit and vegetables at a time when obesity and diabetes have become a national concern.

…..

The Obamas will feed their love of Mexican food with cilantro, tomatillos and hot peppers. Lettuces will include red romaine, green oak leaf, butterhead, red leaf and galactic. There will be spinach, chard, collards and black kale. For desserts, there will be a patch of berries. And herbs will include some more unusual varieties, like anise hyssop and Thai basil. A White House carpenter, Charlie Brandts, who is a beekeeper, will tend two hives for honey.

……

The plots will be in raised beds fertilized with White House compost, crab meal from the Chesapeake Bay, lime and green sand. Ladybugs and praying mantises will help control harmful bugs.

Cristeta Comerford, the White House’s executive chef, said she was eager to plan menus around the garden, and Bill Yosses, the pastry chef, said he was looking forward to berry season.

….

“You can begin in your own cupboard,” she said, “by eliminating processed food, trying to cook a meal a little more often, trying to incorporate more fruits and vegetables.” “

from NYT article

————-

just when i had creeping doubts about the prez….. this is the best thing i have read in weeks. leadership where it needs to be, sending a message that is real. if we can start to rely on our own means for food again we take the power away from big oil and monsanto, while strengthening our communities once again. seriously, this is monumental and organic. now we just need to get him on the permaculture train, get self composting toilets installed in the white house, and convert airforce one to biodisel….

on a side note, jimmy carter installed solar panels on the white house in the 70’s, only to have them removed by one ronny reagan a decade later… rest is history, nuff said.

read this book: (max can  find the torrent ebook)

omnivore’s dilemma

Seasteading

What is “Seasteading”?

Seasteading means to create permanent dwellings on the ocean – homesteading the high seas. A seastead, like in the picture above, is a structure meant for permanent occupation on the ocean.

xam…

dolla dolla bill ya’ll

There are many problems with our monetary system today. money is centralized and debit is owned by a small few. the problem lies in our credit system and interest that is collected on debts.

There are better ways in which to trade and many of them are able to be implemented in smaller communities and then eventually on a larger scale.

Credit clearing is a great system in which there can still be short term loans in order to push progress in the marketplace, but still leave interest and money out, therefore allowing all businesses involved to be profitable without a central bank/government cashing in. Everyone wins. Check it out:

Here is a great downloadble slide show

Here is a bank that has been sucessful in credit clearing:

“The WIR bank is a not for profit bank. It serves the interest of the clients, not the bank itself. It is a very stable system, not prone to failure as the current banking system is. It remains fully operational even in times of general economic crisis. WIR may have contributed to the remarkable stability of the Swiss economy, as it dampens downturns in the business cycle.”

Here is a cool website

anyone got half a $mill?

lets relocate…