My hat is off to you, Mr. Moore. Quite amazing it should come from a 'kid' from Flint. Only in America, Michael. Only in America.

Michael Moore is the most morally centered man I have ever witnessed. And he does it so well.

...You can't expect things to change overnight (click here) and there's not time in nine months to fix catastrophes left by the Bush administration. But I don't believe in the tooth fairy or Santa Claus and he might not be able to fix the problems left by Bush and Cheney....



"Bowling for Columbine" is a brilliant film. It contextualized the dynamics of violence in the USA and subliminal legitimacy the American society gives killing.

But.

"Fahrenheit 911" showed it 'in practice,' Michael. It is one thing to realize a society has been so violent its youth finds rewards in it. It is quite a different thing to see it in action.


November 8th, 2009 5:06 PM
The films that defined the noughties
(In case one does not recognize the jargon, 'noughties' is a 'nickname' if you will for the years 2000 through 2009.)
This decade has given rise to a fragmented, pick’n’mix cinematic culture - but what are the top 100 movie masterpieces of the last ten years?
By David Gritten, Tim Robey and Sukhdev Sandhu / Telegraph
Michael Moore, 2004: (click title to entry - thank you)
It may not have been the best film of the decade. It may not have been the best film Moore has made (that honour still belongs to 1989’s Roger and Me). Nevertheless, it’s hard to overstate the importance of this film, a modestly funded political documentary that was shunned by its Disney backers but went on to win the Palme d’Or at Cannes, coin more than $220 million around the world, and boost the emergence of politically liberal, agenda-driven multiplex fare such as Supersize Me and An Inconvenient Truth.
A speculation: might the accessible and populist fashion in which it marshalled its denunciation of George Bush’s 2000 “electoral theft”, to say nothing of the scorn it poured on American neo-conservative support for the “War on Terror”, have helped create or at least re-identify a large chunk of the non-traditional constituencies who were later tapped successfully by the Obama campaign team?
Criticism that Moore played fast and loose with his facts misses the point. He’s an old-fashioned circus barker. He trades in passion not science. But these days, when Tony Blair gets dubbed a “war criminal” and when the US economy is still ailing after the trillions squandered in the Middle East, the questions he asks look like patriotism rather than treachery.

I am going to call DC tomorrow to find out if there is a final Senate bill.

My guess is that it will be a consolidation of the two bills. With that in mind and realizing the Harkin Bill is remarkably similar to the House Bill, then the logical thing is to read the Baucus bill, especially since it is an amendment to SSI. I think that is the best approach.

Will someone please lock up Joe Lieberman, I think he is a terrorist.

The USA is engaged in two wars in two Islamic countries and this is the kind of insensitivity Lieberman practices. He is killing soldiers and putting them in great danger by making such idiotic statements.

FOX News is placing our soldiers, their mission and our allies in greater danger by allowing such propaganda and permitting such statements of hatred.

Lieberman has NO source, no intelligence to back up his point of view, it is inflammatory rhetoric that is to 'play' to his constituency. He and FOX News are compromising our military, hence, compromising our national security.

Army chief fears backlash for Muslim U.S. soldiers (click here)
Sun Nov 8, 2009 11:30am EST
By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON, Nov 8 (Reuters) - The U.S. Army's top general expressed concern on Sunday that last week's mass shooting at Fort Hood in Texas, blamed on a Muslim Army officer, could fuel a backlash in the military against Muslim troops.
General George Casey, U.S. Army chief of staff, cautioned against jumping to conclusions about whether religious beliefs motivated the accused gunman, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a Muslim born in the United States of immigrant parents.
"I'm concerned that this increased speculation could cause a backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers. And I've asked our Army leaders to be on the lookout for that," Casey told CNN's "State of the Union."
There are about 3,000 Muslims on active duty military service or in the National Guard or reserve forces, Casey said. They remain a small minority within the U.S. military....



There is NO WAY the tragedy at Fort Hood was a terrorist attack. Joe Lieberman needs to stop being stupid.

The man 'went postal' Joe, just that simple. Unfortunately when a soldier 'goes postal' the tragedy is that much greater. And you would have to know the statement was made on FOX News. Where else would he have that kind of permission to be inflammatory and insulting to the USA military.

If the military knew there was a plot against the government from within its ranks it would have acted on it.

The official position of the USA military is that this was an isolated incident. And they are correct.

There is nothing to state it was anything else but, the killer never had contact with any terrorist group anywhere and Lieberman is an idiot. He is inflaming hatred of Muslim Troops and that is bigotry.

Knock it off, Joe! Close down FOX News, will ya? They are endangering the well being of our troops by such outrageous accusations and they are endangering our sovereignty by threatening our troops. They don't belong on the air.

..Sen. Joe Lieberman called the Fort Hood (click title to entry - thank you) massacre an act of "Islamist extremism" - even as top Army brass warned Sunday against guessing at a motive, fearing backlash against Muslim soldiers.
"There are very, very strong warning signs here that Dr. Hasan had become an Islamist extremist and, therefore, that this was a terrorist act," Lieberman (I-Conn) told Fox News on Sunday....

There are two bills, one sponsored by Tom Harkin and one by Max Baucus

Health care reform (SEE: Popular Documents category for House Manager's Amendment and other health care reform documents) (click title to entry)

The Harkin Bill (click here)
S.1679
Title: An original bill to make quality, affordable health care available to all Americans, reduce costs, improve health care quality, enhance disease prevention, and strengthen the health care workforce.
OFFICIAL TITLE AS INTRODUCED: An original bill to make quality, affordable health care available to all Americans, reduce costs, improve health care quality, enhance disease prevention, and strengthen the health care workforce.
Text: It is not the same as the short version or the House Bill. It is published here by sections. (click here) Six titles including definitions. It is a huge bill.


The Harkin Bill looks, to me, to be a better bill. It looks from the summary as if it strongly resembles the House Bill.

The Baucus Bill (click here)
S.1796
Title: An original bill to provide affordable, quality health care for all Americans and reduce the growth in health care spending, and for other purposes.
SUMMARY AS OF: 10/19/2009--Introduced.
America's Healthy Future Act of 2009 - Amends the Social Security Act (SSA) to add a new title XXII (Health Insurance Coverage) to ensure that all Americans have access to affordable and essential health benefits coverage.
Text: This doesn't have titles.(click here) Each section is labeled a 'Parts' because they are amending the SSI Act.

It looks like the short version was abandoned. I guess the Senate is going to consolidate the two no different than the House consolidated three. I hate to guess.

Later.

The Senate Health Care Bill - The Short Version

To make quality, affordable health care available to all Americans, reduce
costs, improve health care quality, enhance disease prevention, and
strengthen the health care workforce.

First Page States:
To make quality, affordable health care available to all Americans,reduce costs, improve health care quality, enhancedisease prevention, and strengthen the health care workforce.
1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa2tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
3 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; TABLE OF CONTENTS.
4 (a) SHORT TITLE.—This Act may be cited as the
5 ‘‘Affordable Health Choices Act’’.
6 (b) TABLE OF CONTENTS.—The table of contents of7 this Act is as follows:

Not much to say about that, title and introduction of the table of contents. The next five pages up to the top of Page 7 is the Table of Contents and I am not going to review that.

The Senate decided to mostly avoid creating a new bill and decided to amend the Public Health Services Act. I guess. I have referred to the Public Services Health Act before. It was in the House Bill, but, the entire House Bill was not an amendment to it. Let's see where this goes. It seems a little whimpy to me.

Page 7, lines 8 through 15:
SEC. 101. AMENDMENT TO THE PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE ACT.
Part A of title XXVII of the Public Health Service
Act (42 U.S.C. 300gg et seq.) is amended—
(1) by striking the part heading and inserting the following:
‘‘PART A—INDIVIDUAL AND GROUP MARKET REFORMS’’;

Page 7, lines 19 through 23 and Page 8, lines 1 and 2:
‘‘SEC. 2705. PROHIBITION OF PREEXISTING CONDITION EXCLUSIONS OR OTHER DISCRIMINATION BASED ON HEALTH STATUS.
‘‘(a) IN GENERAL.—A group health plan and a health insurance issuer offering group or individual health insurance coverage may not impose any preexisting condition exclusion with respect to such plan or coverage.’’; and

I need to simply reveiw the long version. The short version ALREADY lacks 'legal stature' and maybe it was changed in the second version of the bill.

Example. Above is a statement. The statement doesn't give definitions and I paged through fifty pages of the bill and there are no definitions that I have noted. What does that mean? Well. What is a Pre-Existing Condition and when does the law apply? The bill, in this form, is empty. It requires definitions, otherwise, it will end up in court and most people won't have the monies to seek legal advise everytime they go to the physican. It turns over the legislation to the health care industry to define all its provisions on its own terms. The House Bill is a superior bill and it should take precedent over the Senate Bill.

I'll find the longer version. Maybe there is actually something worthwhile in it.

Abortion Rights, Contraception and Success. It is unrealistic for any society to allow religious dogma to dominate the success of its women.

The political PREFERENCE of the Religious Right is stifling the success of our young women. It is a fact and it is going to stop !

If a woman is trapped in pregnancy after pregnancy it is ABUSE.

If a woman is required to give birth at an early age due to oppression of opportunity to receive an abortion and/or birth control it is ABUSE.

When women can't afford birth control or don't have opportunity to receive it from any dispensery in a safe and reliable manner it is ABUSE.



A Dropout Crisis for Girls (click title to entry - thank you)
Every year, an estimated one in four girls drops out of high school — and the rates are even worse for girls of color.
Female dropouts face particularly steep economic consequences. As compared to their male peers, female dropouts have higher rates of unemployment, earn significantly lower wages, and are more likely to need to rely on public support programs to provide for their families.

- Last year, 50% of all women earned less than $20,507. (click here)

- Women are 1 and a half times more likely to be poor than men.

- 1 in 4 girls drops out of school each year.

- Even with Social Security, 1 of every 5 elderly women living alone is poor.

- Girls comprise only 15 percent of traditionally male career and technical
education classes, which lead to high-wage, high-skill jobs.

The cost of Climate Change and the Republican exploitation of construction to buoy an economy.

There are TWO issues at work here and they are the FAULT of Republican economy and exploitation of the American Dream.

Climate Change has brought increased 'natural tragedy' to the American landscape, but, it alone is not responsible for the increased in NATIONAL FLOOD PLAIN AREAS.

The increase in 'flood plains' in the USA is due to OVER USE of land for construction. Under Bush/Cheney and the exploitive Republican majorities there were huge expenditures for housing and commercial development. Literally across the USA land was destroyed from its 'natural' state and modified whichever way necessary to allow for construction. It is how the Republicans for eight long fiscally exploitive years claimed they produced an economy. It is also why so many construction workers have faced unemployment and retraining into new careers.

When natural areas that are well forested and absorb water are sacrificed for construction, replaced with roads and concrete there is only ONE thing to expect and that is flooding and plenty of it.

Conservationists see it all the time and it is almost a joke and a matter of time. Contractors bank roll land with the permission of city planners and local politicians and alter the natural state of the land. They sell their construction for housing or commercial development and call it an economy. The towns are then left with the clean up when the first major storm rolls through and the houses are under water.

It is a joke because the homeowners will receive FEMA money and rebuild, but, then when the second major storm rolls through and their rebuilt home is sitting on a flood plain, they no longer receive FEMA money and they eventually abandon the property, leave it for tax collectors, declare bankruptcy and Conservations get it back again for reclamation.

Now, insurance companies are having a good 'ole time collecting high rates from clients because people actually believe they can tolerate a cycle of flood and joy. Well, good luck, you don't get my sympathy. You can thank the 'TARP' banks for your misery. Somewhere in the contractors proceedings to build there exploitive construction project is a document is adverse to even starting the building project and if there isn't it is because land use ordinances don't require it or require it in a way that matters. Time for people to do their homework and demand better govement or pay through the nose the rest of your life.



New Bedford planner David Kennedy walked atop the New Bedford-Fairhaven hurricane barrier yesterday. (Jonathan Wiggs/ Globe Staff)

Waves of concern (click title to entry - thank you)
Property owners face steep insurance rate hikes, as new federal maps shift flood zone boundaries
Thousands of Massachusetts property owners are discovering their homes and businesses are in newly designated federal flood zones, forcing them to buy additional insurance coverage that can easily exceed $2,000 annually.
The changes are the result of a Federal Emergency Management Agency project to remap flood zones, county by county nationwide. The agency plans to finish most of its Massachusetts maps by next summer, and local governments are in the process of notifying residents and business owners about the new zoning. At the same time, lenders are telling affected borrowers they must increase their insurance coverage....

To contrast Ida and her tropical origins, realize the Arctic is still shunting cold air to the lower latitudes. THE SAME PATTERN.

The intensity of the pattern is different because of the change of seasons and position of the sun. Ida came from lower latitudes because that is where the sun's rays AND AVAILABLE WATER VAPOR dictated the heat consolidate into a storm.

But, the pattern is 'static.' Ida is a 'part' of a huge vortex that is serving as a heat transfer system. It is shunting the heat from lower latitudes to the Arctic Circle. As a result the colder air at the surface of Earth is forced down around the planet ALONG WITH the onset of winter so there is a DOUBLE dose of winter storm.

There is NO WAY anyone, scientist or not can state this is 'normal.' No way.

Tow trucks assist the Colorado State Patrol to clear stalled vehicles from westbound Interstate 70 on Floyd Hill just west of the Denver metropolitan area on Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2009. A winter storm is forecast to continue in Colorado through the day Wednesday.
(AP Photo/Peter M. Fredin)

Denver has received snow for two days.
continued...

Last updated November 7, 2009 4:23 p.m. PT
Heavy snow in Cascades shuts down roads (click here)
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SEATTLE -- The Washington state Department of Transportation has temporarily shut down two highways in the Cascade Mountains due to heavy snow from a fall storm and plans to close a third.
Transportation officials closed State Route 410 over Chinook Pass and State Route 123 over Cayuse Pass Saturday morning. The North Cascades Highway on State Route 20 closed around 4 p.m. Saturday afternoon.
All three roads typically close during the winter due to heavy snow, but transportation officials say none of these are permanent closures. It is being assessed when all the roads can be reopened.

Ida is now a Cat 2 killer storm and will soon be entering the Gulf of Mexico toward hotter waters.

November 8, 2009
17:30:14z
UNISYS Visual GOES East Satellite (click here for 12 hour loop. Visual loops have periods of complete darkness.)


November 8, 2009
17:30:14z
UNISYS Water Vapor GOES East satellite (click here for 12 hour loop)


November 8, 2009
17:30:42z
UNISYS Enhanced Infrared GOES East satellite (click here for 12 hour loop - the setting is wrong, it is actually a 3 hour 'rock' loop. They probably get it straightened out.)


People walk in a street damaged by heavy rains in San Salvador, (click here) Sunday, Nov. 8, 2009. El Salvador's interior minister says that 40 people have died throughout the country following three days of heavy rains. Luis Romero / AP Photo

Government: 40 dead in El Salvador flooding
The Associated Press
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador -- Forty people have died in El Salvador following three days of heavy rains, Interior Minister Humberto Centeno said Sunday.
Centeno told a news conference that the deaths happened in at least five of the 14 provinces of the mountainous Central American country, where it has been raining since Thursday.
Centeno said at least two dozen of the deaths happened in the central San Vicente province. He did not provide details.
...Hurricane Ida passed through Nicaragua on Thursday, slamming the country's Atlantic coast, and damaging or destroying about 500 homes, as well as roads and bridges....



This image provided by NOAA shows Hurricane Ida (click title to entry - thank you) taken at 12:02 a.m. EST Sunday Nov. 11, 2009. The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said Ida's winds had picked up to 75 mph (120 kph), making it a Category 1 storm. Ida plowed into Nicaragua's Atlantic coast on Thursday as a Category 1 hurricane, damaging 500 homes along with bridges, power lines, roads and public buildings. The hurricane was on a path that would take it through the middle of the Yucatan Channel that separates Mexico and Cuba on Sunday. Forecasters predict Ida will enter the Gulf of Mexico, eventually weaken again to tropical storm strength and possibly brush the U.S. Gulf Coast next week. (AP Photo/NOAA)

Why did they vote against the bill? The reasons are their own. Dennis is for single payor. That's why.

Join his petition to make health care a right! (click title to entry - thank you)

This is from the New York Times this morning. Many of the new Blue Dogs are Freshman and switched from a Republican District. Give them your support. Other Blue Dogs unquestionably have 'political capital' they haven't never spent. It is time for them to reflect on their constituency differently.

House Democrats Who Voted Against the Health Care Bill (click here)
Lawmakers in the House voted 220 to 215 on Saturday night to approve a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s health care system. Only one Republican voted for the bill, and 39 Democrats opposed it, including 24 members of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition. An overwhelming majority of the Democratic lawmakers who opposed the bill — 31 of the 39 — represent districts that were won by Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, in the 2008 presidential election, and a third of them were freshmen. Nearly all of the fourteen freshmen Democrats who voted “no” represent districts that were previously Republican and are considered vulnerable in 2010. Geographically, 22 lawmakers from southern states formed the largest opposition bloc. Below are details on the Democrats that opposed the health care legislation in the House.