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Stephen Hawking Enters U.S. Health Care Debate
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GP Prez Cand Cynthia McKinney favors paying for healthcare over war
Posted on August 16, 2009 by iwilder
from the Atlanta Constitution-Journal
Q: OK. Let’s jump to your presidential campaign last year. What were some of the lessons you learned as the Green Party nominee?
A: Winning the Green Party nomination was definitely one of the most wonderful affirmations of my policy prescriptions and advocacies that I have experienced. I was able to travel across the country and meet with people from all backgrounds and all walks of life, all people who were interested in finding a better way.
Q: The health care debate has garnered a tremendous amount of opposition. What sort of health care deal do you think we’ll see in the long run? It’s pretty obvious that we won’t see universal care.
A: Well, if you predict that we won’t see universal care without asking why we won’t get universal care, then of course your prediction will come true.
Q: I hear you, but indulge me just a little. What would be your prescription for a workable health care system?
A: Medicare for all.
Q: Medicare for all?
A: That’s correct.
Q: Why?
A: Because it works.
Q: But the cost …
A: The system that we have costs an entire fortune and the costs are borne by the people, unfortunately, who suffer worse health outcomes as a result. What costs a lot is war and occupation.
Filed under: 3rd party, activism, afghanistan, Anti-War, election, Election 2008, elections, grassroots democracy, Green Party, Healthcare, Peace, presidential race, progressive politics, war | Leave a Comment »
Kimberly’s comments on Patti Smith in Westhampton
Posted on August 16, 2009 by kwilder
Ian and I went to see Patti Smith and Her Band for our anniversary. After the show, we went for dessert. Then, we went back to the parking lot and made a video with reflections on the show. Includes brief comment on the political state of affairs in Long Island. (Oh, I forgot to mention in the video that Patti Smith said very complimentary things about Westhampton, and said she was playing in the ocean before the show.)
Here it is:
(As was bluntly pointed out to me in the youtube comment section, I sang “Power to the People”, when Patti Smith’s song is actually, “The People Have The Power”. Oh, well. They are both excellent thoughts…)
FROM PREVIOUS WILDERSIDE POSTS TODAY… Read more »
Filed under: local, long island, Long Island Music, Long Island Politics, music, News, video | Tagged: long island, music, patti smith, Westhampton, whbpac | 2 Comments »
Patti Smith: current video
Posted on August 16, 2009 by kwilder
I do not know if these will stay up on-line. So, if you are interested watch ’em now. There are several at the readmore. Patti Smith and Her Band videos from a performance given in the week of the anniversary of Woodstock. (I did not take these. Someone near me in the audience did.)
Talkin’ Bout My Generation / Who
The awesome finale. Patti hands off the world from her generation to the next…
Filed under: News | Tagged: Because the Night Belongs To Lovers, Jefferson Airplane, patti smith, Who, Woodstock | Leave a Comment »
Patti Smith recommends a youtube…
Posted on August 16, 2009 by kwilder
The youtube recommended by Patti Smith is below. More explanation at the readmore…
Filed under: Art, local, long island, Long Island Music, music, News, original music, progressive politics | Tagged: La Boheme, long island, music, opera, patti smith, power to the people, punk, Robert Briggs, Roberto Briggs, Vecchia Zimmara, Westhampton | Leave a Comment »
Why you need to help Rev. Billy petition for NYC Mayor TODAY
Posted on August 15, 2009 by iwilder
from the Daily News
This year, the Green candidate is the charismatic showman the Rev. Billy Talen, who could do even better. He dresses in an electric blue suit and sings songs about driving Bloomberg out of town – and Castell won’t rule out a petition challenge to try to knock him off the ballot.
“If it turns out to be a really, really close election, then things like the Green Party matter,” said New York voter list expert Jerry Skurnik.
Final push to put Billy on the Ballot.
Filed under: Action Alert!, activism, election, elections, Green Party | Tagged: Billy Talen, Mayor, NYC, Reverend Billy, William Talen | 1 Comment »
DN!: Ralph Nader on Obama’s Deals with Big Pharma & Health Insurance Co’s
Posted on August 15, 2009 by iwilder
RALPH NADER: What is emerging here is what was being planned by the Obama White House all along, which is they would onlyâthey would only demand legislation that was accepted by the big drug companies and the big health insurance companies.
You can see this emerging over the last few months. President Obama has met with the heads of the drug companies and the health insurance companies. Some executives have met with President Obama four to five times in the White House in the last few months. He has never met with the longtime leaders of the âFull Medicare for Everybodyâ movement, including Dr. Quentin Young, who is a close friend of his in Chicago; Dr. Sidney Wolfe, the head of the Health Research Group of Public Citizen; Rose Ann DeMoro, the leader of the fast-growing California Nurses Associationânot once in the White House.
Thatâs all you need to know to realize that the deal thatâs being cut here is from Obama to Senator Baucus, the Blue Dog senator from Montana, who is cutting a deal, largely in private, with right-wing Republican senators and getting it through the Senate and presenting Henry Waxman and John Dingle and others in the House with a fait accompli. So whatever they pass in the House will be watered down in the Senate-House conference. And what weâll end up with is another patchwork piece of legislation, allowing huge and expanded profits for the health insurance companies and the drug companies, and continuing this pay-or-die system that has plagued this country for decades, a system that takes 20,000 lives a year, according to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. Thatâs about fifty to sixty people who die every day.
The big mistake that the Obama administration made was they did not have continual public congressional hearings documenting the greed, the fraud, the $250 billion in billing fraud and abuse alone that the GAO years ago has documented. They didnât document the $350 billion of waste, the overhead of Aetna and UnitedHealthcare and other health insurance companies with their massive executive salaries and bureaucracies. They did not document the deaths, the injuries, the sickness that hundreds of thousands of Americans go through every year because they canât afford healthcare.
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Joan Baez demonstrates Nonviolent Communication
Posted on August 15, 2009 by iwilder
Joan Baez diffuses right wing protest at Idaho concert
At this point, Joan’s continuing acceptance of their stories and her willingness to hear them out began to melt their anger. In a twist that seems hard to fathom, they then asked her to SIGN THEIR POSTERS! She replied that she would sign the back but not the front of “those horrible things.” Incredibly, the man with the baby-killing sign replied that he would take her name off the poster if she would sign it.
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Sad news: Musician Les Paul died today
Posted on August 13, 2009 by kwilder
If you are interested in hearing music and reflections from people who worked with and cared deeply about Les Paul, I heard tributes going on at two NY metro area stations: WFUV 90.7FM in NYC and WUSB 90.1FM in Stony Brook.
(excerpt from) The Guardian UK
Esther Addley / Thursday 13 August 2009
Les Paul, the legendary guitarist and inventor whose technical innovations were fundamental to the birth of rock’n’roll, died today. He was 94. Read more »
Filed under: local, long island, Long Island Music, music, News | Tagged: Les Paul, Lester Polsfuss, music | Leave a Comment »
Wired: Diebold Quietly Patches Security Flaw in Vote Counting Software
Posted on August 13, 2009 by iwilder
Premier Election Solutions, formerly Diebold, has patched a serious security weakness in its election tabulation software used in the majority of states, according to a lab that tested the new version and a federal commission that certified it.
The flaw in the tabulation software was discovered by Wired.com earlier this year, and involved the program’s auditing logs. The logs failed to record significant events occurring on a computer running the software, including the act of someone deleting votes during or after an election. The logs also failed to record who performed an action on the system, and listed some events with the wrong date and timestamps.
Filed under: election, elections, Electronic Voting, New York State Politics, US Politics | Tagged: Diebold, Electronic Voting, Electronic Voting Machines | Leave a Comment »
Washington Post: Fight Global Warming, Become Vegetarian
Posted on August 13, 2009 by iwilder
Gut Check: The Meat of the Problem
According to a 2006 United Nations report, livestock accounts for 18 percent of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. Some of meat’s contribution to climate change is intuitive. It’s more energy efficient to grow grain and feed it to people than it is to grow grain and turn it into feed that we give to calves until they become adults that we then slaughter to feed to people. Some of the contribution is gross. “Manure lagoons,” for instance, is the oddly evocative name for the acres of animal excrement that sit in the sun steaming nitrous oxide into the atmosphere. And some of it would make Bart Simpson chuckle. Cow gas — interestingly, it’s mainly burps, not farts — is a real player.
But the result isn’t funny at all: Two researchers at the University of Chicago estimated that switching to a vegan diet would have a bigger impact than trading in your gas guzzler for a Prius (PDF). A study out of Carnegie Mellon University found that the average American would do less for the planet by switching to a totally local diet than by going vegetarian one day a week. That prompted Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, to recommend that people give up meat one day a week to take pressure off the atmosphere. The response was quick and vicious. “How convenient for him,” was the inexplicable reply from a columnist at the Pittsburgh Tribune Review. “He’s a vegetarian.”
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IL Green Party Senate candidate is wise beyond his years
Posted on August 13, 2009 by iwilder
Senate candidate is wise beyond his years
LeAlan Jones has never let youth or inexperience hold him back.
That’s why at 30 Jones is bold enough to join the race for the U.S. Senate seat recently held by his fellow South Sider, President Obama. Jones is running on the Green Party of Illinois ticket.
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