The number of Americans who lack dependable access to adequate chow increased in 2008 to 49 million, the largest number since the government began keeping track in 1995, according to a new USDA report released Monday. Single mothers are the most hard hit, though half the people reporting food scarcity live above the official poverty line. You can see the Washington Post article or scan my notes from that article behind the cut.
( notes )

This Washington Post story is particularly rich. First, the man with the guns was an Army major, and the location of the shooting was in a US military processing center in Virginia. Second, he was a psychiatrist and a doctor in the Medical Corps. Third, he was a devout Muslim, born of Palestinian parents in the US. Fourth, he was about to be deployed. Five, he disagreed with the US wars in the Middle East. Six, he opened fire with two handguns killing 11 military and police men and injuring another 31 before he was shot dead. Seven, there was the suspicion that other men were also shooting people but they were questioned and released. There are lots more details, but just that bit of info is ample food for thought. EDIT: Initially it was reported that the shooter was killed in the incident, but now they're saying he's alive and in stable condition. So we will know the motive, eventually.

These notes from an NPR story (8 minutes long) on how we ended up with a system in which most people get their health insurance from employers. It turns out, it wasn't planned, it was the outcome of a series of historical accidents, and also the result of business influences on the tax laws of the land.
( notes )

There's fear and consternation on the conservative side that this bill, introduced by Rockefeller, will give Obama the power to shut down the internet. On the other hand, the goal of the bill is to address security threats and provide all US internet users with a higher level of security for our data. So the question is, are there national borders in the internet, and do we want our country to protect them for us?
( links as food for thought )

Finally someone has the guts to mention the possibility that corporations have been running roughshod over our nation ever since the court decided that corporations all have the rights of people, but none of the responsibilities. The uppity Latina has exceeded my expectations already. She may well make wiser decisions than white guys.

Sotomayor Issues Challenge to a Century of Corporate Law
By JESS BRAVIN
( article )

"There’s more money in amputating the limbs of diabetics than in counseling them on diet and exercise."

( Read Michael Pollan's NYTimes Op-Ed from 9/10/09, on the food industry's part in the healthcare boondoggle. )

These docs are speaking for the single payer option. They make a good case. They're on a road trip across the US right now, talking about single payer in major cities as they go. I find myself sympathetic to their cause: it would work a helluva lot better than the fascist system we have currently. I guess I am a socialist libertarian. The other end of the spectrum would also work: to eliminate government interference in healthcare provision and payment, allow physicians to advertise competitive rates, remove the insurance middleman, and let the customers decide what they want and how much they are willing to pay for it. That really sounds best to me. But from where we are today, ANY substantial change would be a benefit. Even (gasp) socialism. Because what we need to do is the very most difficult thing: remove the giant financial suckhole of multinational corporate involvement from our healthcare system. Single payer would remove most of the corporate suckers. The few corporations that got the government contracts would be sitting pretty, and the rest would have to go elsewhere. None of them like that game, until it is already won. That is why they are putting so much sneaky money into preventing it.

I wish that all the fringe people of the united states could get past their differences just long enough to unseat the powers that be. It is time for the patriots of the US to rise again and say that we will not be subjected to overweening government nor forced to pay unfair taxes. The taxes that we pay are being sucked into a great corporate hole. Nobody but us will stop it. But the revolution will have to wait until the socialists and the libertarians can agree on a course of action. We are stuck in a position that will take considerable citizen effort to change. As long as we let corporations and government rule us, we hardly deserve the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, and reputation that we claim as Americans.

Excellent article here
by Dick Goldhill
published online at:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200909/health-care
( text of first half behind cut )

“Progressive”: a self-congratulatory word used by the lemming at the front of the pack to describe himself, as he and his fellows “progress” toward the edge of the cliff.
--Butler Shaffer

If you want to keep driving your car, and you would like the roads to be passable, it is in your best interest to support a gas tax. It is not easy to find a way to fund road maintenance and building. Those who purchase gas are those who use the roads. The use is proportional: more gas-->more road use. It doesn't get any more fair than that. But people seem to think that the job of government is to give them something for all the taxes they have paid in the past. Sorry, bad news: those monies are long gone. The government is in a hole. If we don't give local governments some reliable way to pay for infrastructure, there won't be any.

In Madras, smalltown Oregon, the transportation budget has been supported up to now by hefty fees that were charged of developers, to be paid before construction began. Now the town is implementing a 1 cent gas tax, to be increased to 3 cents at a rate of 1 cent/year. The people are upset that the burden is being lifted from developers, and placed on their shoulders. What they don't seem to realize is that the developers aren't going to be building so much new stuff anymore. With people out of work and relearning frugality, developers will be shutting down operations and going to retire in the tropics. There won't be commercial projects to support big roads and fancy intersections. If we want to be able to get around on our roads, we are going to have to maintain them more at the local level.
( more thoughts )

Mentally Ill Offenders Strain Juvenile System
As cash-starved states slash mental health programs in communities and schools, they are increasingly relying on the juvenile corrections system to handle a generation of young offenders with psychiatric disorders. About two-thirds of the nation’s juvenile inmates — who numbered 92,854 in 2006, down from 107,000 in 1999 — have at least one mental illness, according to surveys of youth prisons, and are more in need of therapy than punishment.
( notes )

Nice, simple explanation here of what has happened with the federal reserve, banks, and the bailout. Spitzer gets it. This is why I still give Obama an F on the economy.

I heard this on the radio this morning, and then swift on its heels a statement from Obama telling the Chinese to shop more. He wants Chinese people to become as blatantly materialist as Americans are, so that we can sell them things. What? Interesting times indeed. The Cuban leader is ahead of the American leader in recognizing the reality of the crisis that confronts our planet, and the solution to it. Maybe I'll move to Cuba. Much as I adore Obama for his cultural sensitivity and ability to bring previously disenfranchised groups to the table, he is still flunking on the economy. In the long run it may be incredibly beneficial to Cuba to not be sucked into the American paradigm of wealth. The embargo is a blessing in disguise.

The explosions are constant now and the sirens are temporarily silenced. The pets are in hiding. The show is amazing, terrific, colorful, people are applauding within a block of here. I am tired, and headed for bed soon. The noise will not keep me up.

I remember hearing about that day--7/4/1776--that the representatives of America's 13 original colonies announced to the world that they were free, and that they would no longer accept outside rule. The gall of them. Just saying HEY man you can't boss me around anymore. Anymore if an American patriot acts with such independence, he finds himself listed as a terrorist on some government watchlist.

Text of old document behind cut.
( we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor )

I've been listening to opposite sides on this issue. Ron Paul predictably says that the government is headed down the slippery slope toward socialized medicine, and that we shouldn't do it. He doesn't offer an active alternative; his alternative is no regulation and no government involvement whatsoever. From where we are today, I don't know if the sudden removal of government subsidies from health industry corporations would do the trick. What I do know is that it isn't going to happen. Too far off the beaten course. People can't comprehend it and don't trust in it enough. Most Libertarians are more militant and less diplomatic than Dr. Paul, and so are not gaining a wider audience. That approach is at a standstill.
( thoughts )